Bomb alert in thousands of schools: schools evacuated. Meloni calls a meeting

Bomb alert in thousands of Italian schools. There are 6 thousand institutes - many, but not all, of which have been evacuated - which today, 11 November, received an email speaking of an imminent explosion, explains the Minister of Education, Giuseppe Valditara. From the checks carried out, government sources report, no element emerges that suggests the existence of a concrete danger. Valditara himself speaks of a "non-existent risk" and of "a strategy" linked to the alarms and hacker attacks of recent weeks: "They attacked flights, supermarkets, if I remember correctly even hospitals. Who is behind it is difficult to imagine at the moment. The judiciary will carry out its investigations". However, the head of the Interior Ministry Matteo Piantedosi appears cautious: "It is premature to talk about common management". Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has called a meeting at Palazzo Chigi at 4pm to take stock of the situation and coordinate the necessary initiatives. Furthermore, the Prime Minister will also see the leaders of the opposition forces tomorrow morning.

The message signed Mikhail Andropov: "We have come to annihilate you"

"I have just left a powerful explosive device with remote trigger in your building, inside a plastic bag", reads the message signed by Mikhail Andropov who defines himself as "leader of the Vilajat of Misoginistan" and threatens: "We have come to annihilate you. We will carry out a genocide against the Italians". The message reads: "I have been preparing for this for a long time: to kill each of you. I have just left a powerful remote-triggered explosive device in your building, inside a plastic bag. I have positioned it in such a way that the shock wave will spread throughout the building. Only bones and a bloody mess will remain of you." Furthermore, he continues, "we planted a bomb in the engine of your prime minister's car." After that "we will finish off the survivors with stabs."

Certain reports have been recorded, among other things, in the provinces of Milan, Trieste, Padua, Venice, Naples, Brescia, Rome, Modena, Frosinone, Potenza, Rieti, Lecce, Palermo and Syracuse. But the list is much longer. The suspicion, given the common nature of the report, is that the threat may be associated with a new cyber attack against Italian institutions. The judiciary has already started moving: the Genoa Prosecutor's Office, for example, has opened a case for causing alarm, interruption of public service and serious threats, crimes which could be aggravated by the aim of terrorism. Already in recent days around 200 principals of schools of all levels had received a similar report.

Lombardy Region: “Families remain calm”

After the threats that have reached thousands of Italian schools, including in Lombardy, "the invitation is to remain calm and follow the communications of the schools and competent authorities": this was underlined by the Lombardy Region Education Councilor Simona Tironi, who contacted the police to take stock of the situation. "We are in constant contact to have a direct update on the institutes involved", he explained. "I understand the concern of families, students and all school staff. As the mother of a young student, I do not deny that the evacuation of classes following a bomb scare has repercussions on the psychological level of the children and leaves its mark. The important thing is to identify the perpetrators of what is happening as soon as possible."

Crosetto: "Strategy to create concerns"

Defense Minister Guido Crosetto intervened to say that the bomb scares are part of the "strategy of sowing and creating concerns". The police forces, he added, "work precisely to discern things that are serious from things that are the result of mythomaniacs, who will become more and more because unfortunately the mother of idiots is always pregnant".

Student network: "Government guarantees security"

"The government must intervene to guarantee safety in our country's schools". This was stated by Simone Montori, regional coordinator of the Middle School Students Network of Lazio. "It is inconceivable how a simple email could sow panic throughout the peninsula," he continues. The student union continues to monitor the situation in schools in the region and is relaunching the student strike on November 20th.

False alarms also in UK schools

The alarms are not just affecting Italy. In fact, over 300 schools in Northern Ireland received a bomb threat via email and some were evacuated. The local police later confirmed that these were false alarms. The message also reached institutes in Scotland. The police explained that the checks did not detect "anything anomalous" and the sending of the message, the same for all institutions, started from outside the United Kingdom. A similar situation had already occurred on October 19th.