Six thousand Italian schools hit by threats in suspected bomb hoax

Some 6,300 schools across Italy have received bomb threats, according to government in Rome, and Education Minister Giuseppe Valditara has said the incidents are probably a "cyber-attack, not a genuine risk". Valditara told Italian TV that there was a clear strategy behind the rash of threats in Italy and elsewhere in Europe which had targeted flights, supermarkets and even hospitals. Separately, more than 700 schools in Scotland and Northern Ireland also received hoax bomb threats.

It is unclear whether any of the incidents are connected. In Italy a number of buildings were evacuated as a precaution but Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said checks so far had not indicated any evidence of "concrete danger". Italian officials said a single email appeared to have been sent on Wednesday to the inboxes of 6,300 out of a total of 7,476 state schools, and private schools were unaffected.

The message, said to be from a certain "Mikhail Andropov, leader of Vilayat di Misoginistan", caused alarm in many schools.