Schools across Italy evacuated after bomb threats

Detailed summary

Schools across Italy were evacuated on Wednesday after a wave of hoax bomb threats, which Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said posed no "concrete danger".

Schools were evacuated across Italy on Wednesday following a series of hoax bomb threats, but Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said there was no "concrete danger".

Similar hoax threats were reported in schools in Britain and Ireland, which prompted some evacuations in Scotland.

Meloni called a government meeting for Wednesday with security and intelligence chiefs over the threats, which Italian news agency Ansa, citing the education ministry, said had been sent to about 6,000 schools.

It was unclear how many schools evacuated their students after receiving the threats.

Crowds of evacuated schoolchildren could be seen outside their schools in different parts of the country.

Some said they had had to evacuate quickly and left belongings inside that they could not recover before police checks.

"The principal came out into the courtyard and told us that an email had come in, a bomb threat, and right after that the building was evacuated," Sofia De Ponte, a 19-year-old student at Rome's Virgilio high school, told AFP.

De Ponte said the police had still not arrived because "there's a long waiting list with all the schools".

"We're still here waiting," said her fellow pupil Elena Sicignano, 19.

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