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Bomb Threats Disrupt European Schools and Airports
· Confirmed
In Short: European schools and airports faced bomb threats via email, prompting evacuations and investigations.
Bomb threats disrupt flights across Europe, cause chaos for travelers.
Bomb threats via email disrupted schools and airports across Europe, leading to evacuations and investigations.
In Italy, over 6,300 schools received bomb threats, with 312 schools evacuating students.
Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni said there was no indication of any concrete danger and that the threats appeared aimed at generating alarm.
Police in Northern Ireland and Scotland also responded to threats, with hundreds of schools receiving similar warnings.
In Ireland, RTÉ evacuated its staff after receiving a threat warning that a bomb would explode within 45 minutes.
El Al and LOT flights were diverted after receiving bomb threats, with security sweeps finding nothing.
Some schools in Rome evacuated students into the streets, while others, like those in Milan, remained open after recognizing the threats as hoaxes.
The Italian Education Ministry said a single email appeared to have been sent to the inboxes of 6,300 out of a total of 7,476 state schools.
Some schools in Scotland and Northern Ireland also received threats, with local authorities advising schools to remain open unless otherwise advised by police.
The threats also targeted newsrooms, with British broadcaster Sky among those receiving warnings.
The message, purportedly from 'Mikhail Andropov, leader of Vilayat di Misoginistan,' caused alarm in many schools.
While the number of bomb threats is concerning, they represent a small fraction of all flights taking place in Europe in one day.
Background
Schools across Italy were evacuated Wednesday after receiving bomb threat emails.
The European Schools is an intergovernmental organisation, which has established, financed, and administered a small group of multilingual international schools, bearing the title "European School", which exist primarily to offer an education to the children of European Union (EU) staff from the maternel to the higher years of education; offers accreditation to other schools, bearing the title "Accredited European School", under national jurisdiction within EU member states to provide its curriculum; and oversees the provision of the secondary school leaving diploma, the European Baccalaureate.
What's confirmed
- Schools in Ireland, Scotland and Northern Ireland received similar threats, but no evacuations were reported.
- Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni said there was no indication of any “concrete danger” to schools and that the threats appeared aimed at “generating alarm and concern.” She said investigations were underway and that she had called a meeting of ministers for later Wednesday.
- Police in Northern Ireland said they were conducting “urgent inquiries” after a threatening email was sent to hundreds of schools.
- MILAN — Italian authorities evacuated hundreds of schools Wednesday after an emailed bomb threat, the latest in a series of disruptions affecting European institutions following recent hoaxes aimed at airlines and broadcasters.
- The message, said to be from a certain "Mikhail Andropov, leader of Vilayat di Misoginistan", caused alarm in many schools.
What's still developing
- El Al flight from Israel to Bulgaria and LOT flight from London to Warsaw both diverted after emailed threats. Security sweeps found nothing; authorities suspect coordinated hoax targeting European airports Bulgarian security forces searched a passenger plane that arrived in Sofia from Israel on Tuesday after a bomb threat was received by email, one of several false alarms that disrupted flights across Europe the same day.
- A coordinated wave of false bomb threats targeted newsrooms and dozens of commercial passenger flights across several European nations on Friday, Nov. 6, prompting military fighter jet scrambles, flight diversions, and building evacuations, European authorities and news agencies reported.
- Officials in the Colombian capital Bogotá announced Thursday they were investigating whether a city health agency’s email account was compromised or spoofed after it was identified in a bomb hoax email sent to a European airport.
- At least 300 schools throughout Italy received emails claiming that explosives had been planted on their premises.
- At Rome’s Mamiani high school, students poured into the streets thinking the alarm was the recess bell and only learned there was a bomb threat after they were outside.
- DUBLIN — Bomb threats targeting several of Ireland’s top media organizations are almost certainly linked to next week’s European Political Community summit in Dublin, a government official told POLITICO.
- “However, these threats come on the heels of the ongoing disruption to aviation around Europe caused by similar threats, and it seems likely that this is a coordinated campaign of disruption.” Bomb threats also targeted at least 18 European flights Friday, after at least 22 the day before, raising concerns that the hoaxes may be part of a coordinated campaign to disrupt air traffic.
- Although many schools were initially evacuated on Wednesday, the alarm was quickly lifted, and pupils were allowed to return to class. Some parents decided to take their children home for the day, but the majority of schools in Milan did not send their pupils home. Some 280 school head teachers had already received threats in recent days, according to Italian reports. In a statement, the head of the central Umbria region Stefania Proietti said "checks conducted so far in Umbrian schools have proved negative, and law enforcement is working rapidly and carefully to verify each report".
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- No explosives have so far been found, and it is not clear who or what is behind the security threats made against at least 14 airliners.