Schools in Italy, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Ireland received bomb threats on Wednesday, prompting some evacuations and reassurances from authorities. It was unclear whether the incidents were connected.
Italian officials said a single email appeared to have been sent to 6,300 of the country’s 7,476 state schools, according to BBC. Some buildings were evacuated as a precaution. Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said checks so far had revealed no evidence of a concrete danger.
In Scotland, police assessed the warnings as hoaxes, though some local authorities said schools had been evacuated. Police advised that the emails alone did not require schools to evacuate or children to stay away from education. Specialist cybercrime officers were working to identify the source of the messages.
In Northern Ireland, education officials advised schools to remain open unless police advised otherwise. Police said their inquiries were ongoing and assessed the risk to the public as low, The Guardian reported.
In Ireland, the Garda Síochána assessed the threat as not credible and said it had not called for evacuations.
