Bomb-threat email triggers school evacuations across Italy, Valditara cites around 300 schools

An email to schools across Italy

An anonymous email, signed Mikhail Andropov, reached schools across Italy on the morning of 11 November. It described a powerful device hidden in a plastic bag inside the building, set to be triggered from a distance, and it promised a genocide against Italians. Figures varied between reports: one put the number of schools that raised the alarm at more than 100, while Valditara cited around 300. In class chats, a message said police contacted through 112 had ordered the evacuation of all pupils and staff in Rome and elsewhere, and some parents rushed to schools to collect their children. As the alarm was cleared in many buildings, tensions eased, but worry lingered.

Evacuations in several regions

In Puglia, the Istituto comprensivo don Bosco Manzoni and the Ites Carafa in Andria were evacuated, while other schools kept lessons going, judging the alarm a hoax. In Salento, pupils and teachers were moved to outside areas at the Itc Olivetti and the Banzi high school, and returned to class after bomb disposal officers inspected the buildings. The Pepe-Calamo scientific high school in Ostuni, in the Brindisi province, was temporarily evacuated. In Calabria, evacuations were reported in Scalea, Montalto and Reggio Calabria, where the Tommaso Campanella classical high school and the Leonardo da Vinci scientific high school were emptied, while students gathered on the streets of Catanzaro. In the Milan area patrol cars assisted the evacuations, about twenty schools in the Varese province were being cleared, and some heads in the Brescia area kept their students inside.

Checks and the minister's response

In Umbria at least ten schools in the Perugia province were affected, and some structures in the Terni province also reported the alarm. Checks have so far all come back negative, and the postal police in Umbria are looking into the emails. Across the country, national police, local police, firefighters and bomb experts were on site to coordinate evacuations and checks.

Education minister Giuseppe Valditara told La7 that the threat was not credible and that a strategy would be decided together with other ministers and the intelligence services.

“No to alarmism, because it is clear from the content of the email that the concrete risk is almost non-existent”

Speaking on Aria che Tira, also on La7, he said the emails had hit flights, supermarkets and, if he recalled correctly, hospitals too. He added that the judiciary would carry out its own inquiry and that investment in security was essential.

“It is evident that there is a strategy”

Valditara said the number of schools was expected to rise, while the checks in Umbria remained negative.