Around 6,300 schools across Italy received the same emailed bomb threat on Wednesday, forcing hundreds of them to evacuate pupils as police across Europe treated the messages as a hoax.
Italian officials said a single email was sent to the inboxes of 6,300 out of 7,476 state schools, from Rome and Milan to Naples, Florence and Trieste. Private schools were unaffected. At least 300 schools were evacuated as a precaution, and one Rome school told parents all pupils had been taken to a safe area and remained under staff supervision.
The same message reached schools beyond Italy. Police Scotland said 470 schools in Scotland received it and that the messages had been assessed and were being treated as hoaxes, with nothing to suggest a credible threat. More than 300 schools in Northern Ireland reported the same email, which the Police Service of Northern Ireland said originated from outside the country. Police in the Republic of Ireland said they were aware of a generic message sent to educational establishments, which they dismissed as not credible.
The email was signed “Mikhail Andropov, leader of the Vilayat of Misoginistan”, according to a copy seen by Reuters. The same purported author claimed responsibility for email bomb threats sent on Friday to newsrooms in Ireland and Bulgaria, and has also claimed responsibility for bomb threats that disrupted dozens of flights across Europe in recent weeks. The copy seen by Reuters also included a threat to target Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.
Education Minister Giuseppe Valditara said the incidents were probably a “cyber-attack, not a genuine risk”. He told Italian television there was a clear strategy behind the rash of threats in Italy and elsewhere in Europe, which had also targeted flights, supermarkets and hospitals. Defence Minister Guido Crosetto said the threats were part of a clear strategy “to spread fear and create anxiety”, and said he would report to parliament.
Meloni later posted on social media that the threats posed no danger, adding that police and other public bodies were monitoring the situation. An urgent government meeting was called in Rome in response.
Authorities have not attributed the threats to any group or state, and no evidence has emerged linking the hoaxes to a government. The alerts follow weeks of disruption across Europe, including bomb hoaxes that hit air traffic and television broadcasters, and hacking attacks on blood banks and supermarkets. Similar hoax threats closed schools in Northern Ireland and Scotland last month.
Sources: Reuters, “At least 300 Italian schools evacuated after email bomb alerts” (https://www.reuters.com/world/least-300-italian-schools-evacuated-after-email-bomb-alerts-2026-11-11/); BBC News, “Six thousand Italian schools hit by threats in suspected bomb hoax” (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwz0k79pr8z2o); Sky News, “Threatening emails sent to thousands of schools across UK, Ireland and Italy treated as hoaxes”.
