Μake us preferred on Google Schools across Italy were evacuated on Wednesday after at least 300 of them received an identical email warning of a bomb, Education Minister Giuseppe Valditara said.
Valditara told the La7 television channel that the threats were believed to be fake, though he expected the number of affected schools to keep climbing. He argued that the sheer scale of the alert undermined it, saying the large number of targets showed how little credibility the threat had.
One school in Rome used a messaging app to tell parents that, following the nationwide alert, all students had been moved to a safe area and were being supervised by their teachers.
According to a copy of the email seen by Reuters, it was signed “Mikhail Andropov, leader of the Vilayat of Misoginistan.” The same supposed sender took responsibility for emailed bomb threats sent last Friday to newsrooms in Ireland and Bulgaria.
A Rome police spokesperson said Italian police are investigating.
The scare comes as European countries grow increasingly worried about so-called hybrid warfare, with recent threats hitting targets such as supermarkets, blood banks, air traffic and television broadcasters.
