Italy evacuates at least 300 schools after bomb threats, minister says

Italy evacuated at least 300 schools on 11 November after they received emailed bomb threats, Education Minister Giuseppe Valditara said. The alarm was quickly lifted after many schools were evacuated, and pupils were allowed to return to class.

A similar warning had disrupted more than 200 schools the previous week, including many in Rome.

Italian officials said a single email appeared to have reached about 6,300 of the country’s 7,476 state schools, a recipient count rather than an evacuation figure; private schools were unaffected, the BBC said.

Earlier accounts gave smaller figures: DW said 312 schools received the same email, while the Guardian cited early reports of at least 100 affected schools. Neither figure was an evacuation count.

Many parents interrupted their activities to collect their children, and some took them home for the day. Most schools in Milan did not send pupils home.

Latest · 12 November 2026

About 280 school headteachers in Italy had already received threats in recent days, according to Italian reports cited by the BBC. In Scotland, some local authorities confirmed that schools had been evacuated, although Police Scotland said the emails alone did not require evacuation or keeping children away from school.

Latest · 11 November 2026

More than 700 schools across Scotland and Northern Ireland received bomb threats, according to local authorities cited by the BBC. The figure is a combined count of schools that received threats, not of schools evacuated.

Police investigate the threats

Valditara said the incidents were probably a cyberattack rather than a genuine risk. Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said checks so far had found no evidence of concrete danger and that the reports appeared intended to cause alarm. She also said the emailed bomb alerts posed no danger and that police and other public bodies were monitoring the situation.

Stefania Proietti, head of the Umbria region, said checks in its schools had found nothing so far and law enforcement was verifying each report. A Rome police spokesperson said Italian police were investigating.

The Guardian said Rai and Sky TG24 identified the email’s signature as “Mikhail Andropov,” the same name used in several hoax bomb alerts against European flights the previous week. The signature does not establish who sent the email.

Threats in Ireland and the UK

Police in Northern Ireland said more than 300 schools received a threatening email that they were treating as a hoax. The Northern Ireland Education Authority said schools had been advised to stay open because police did not regard the threat as credible.

Police in Ireland advised against evacuations after assessing a communication sent to schools as not credible. Police in Scotland also treated messages sent to schools as hoaxes and said inquiries found no indication of a credible or wider public threat. It is unclear whether the incidents are connected.

Meloni summoned senior ministers and intelligence chiefs over the Italian threats. Opposition leaders were due to meet her on 12 November.