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Hoax bomb threats hit 1,803 Italian schools on Thursday, a day after about 6,300 were targeted, prompting the government to instruct schools not to evacuate over mass emails alone, according to Italian media and government sources.
"In the absence of concrete elements beyond the simple receipt of mass emails that would suggest a danger exists, buildings should not be evacuated," the prime minister’s office said, adding that prefects retain the power to order evacuations if they have specific evidence of real risk.
Some schools were evacuated anyway in Rome, Naples, Palermo, Trieste, Catania, Faenza, Forli and Salerno, among others, with police and carabinieri sweeping buildings, La Repubblica reported.
The new email, signed again by "Mikhail Andropov," arrived at 9:39 a.m. from a domain in the Philippines under the title "Message from Italy. You are in danger," Italian media reported. It was more detailed and aggressive than Wednesday’s, falsely claiming bombs had been placed, including at Palazzo Chigi, the prime minister’s office, and demanding Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s resignation.
Wednesday’s threat, sent from a supposedly Taiwanese account to nearly Italy’s entire state school network, was signed by "Mikhail Andropov" from "Misoginistan."
After meeting intelligence chiefs, Meloni said the messages aimed to "instill fear" and that police checks "found nothing in any schools."
Government sources said some principals ordered evacuations immediately after the emails arrived, before receiving ministers’ instructions. A technical meeting of the Interministerial Committee for the Security of the Republic was set to finalize a common protocol for handling alerts, the government said.
Rome’s Bravetta science high school principal Paola Vigoroso did not evacuate, citing "the language used in the text, with various errors in the characters," which showed "it was a fake," prompting a student protest that also targeted the Education Ministry.
Palermo’s Umberto I classical high school sent students home after an email warned of a massacre at 10:50 a.m., though it said it believed the threat was false.
In Puglia, schools suspended lessons for checks without evacuating, regional schools director Giuseppe Silipo said.
In Molise, Larino’s principal ordered evacuations, and carabinieri found no explosives.
Schools in Rieti and Naples also sent students out, while some Milan schools received the message without evacuating.
Opposition leaders backed cooperation after meeting Meloni but called for more cybersecurity funding.
"The government already has the tools to manage these things; the proposals must come from the government," said Five Star Movement leader Giuseppe Conte.
Democratic Party leader Elly Schlein said: "We say no to blank checks for the government."
Antonello Giannelli, president of the national principals’ association ANP, urged the Education Ministry to build email filtering systems and a centralized real-time alert channel so schools do not face threats alone.
French President Emmanuel Macron said it was too soon to say whether foreign powers were behind a wave of hoax bomb threats across Europe, including against flights and schools.
"As I speak we do not have sufficient elements to be able to make an attribution," he told reporters in Dublin.
A bomb alert at the Calais-Fethun station in northern France disrupted Eurostar trains between London and Paris on Thursday, the Pas-de-Calais prefecture and Eurostar said.
Concern is mounting that hoax threats against flights and cyberattacks on supermarket refrigeration systems could be part of a hybrid warfare campaign, as Italy works to contain the hoax bomb threats.
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