ROME: 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.
Meloni said she had called a government meeting for Wednesday, with Italian media reporting that 312 schools had received threats.
"At present, based on the checks carried out, no element has emerged that would suggest there is a concrete danger," she said on Facebook.
"The reports instead appear to be linked to a strategy aimed at generating alarm and concern, which is currently the subject of all the necessary in-depth investigations," Meloni said.
Antonello Giannelli, president of the ANP association of Italian school heads, said the threats were "clearly fake".
But he added: "This episode shows how much irresponsibility, when combined with the extraordinary communicative power of the tools we have today, can cause damage and disruption on a large scale".
"We hope that full light will quickly be shed on the origin of these threats and that those responsible will be identified," he said.
The threats come after a series of hoax bomb alerts in recent weeks including on flights across Europe and cyber attacks on supermarket refrigeration systems in several European countries, including Italy.
Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said on Saturday he was being targeted by "cyber criminals" who were sharing his personal data online because of Italy's support for Ukraine.
The attacks have prompted warnings about hybrid warfare.
— AFP
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