School alarms, Palazzo Chigi: ensuring safety without disrupting services

The Interministerial Committee for the Security of the Republic (CISR) held a technical meeting this afternoon at Palazzo Chigi, attended by the Under-Secretary to the Prime Minister’s Office and Delegated Authority for the Security of the Republic, Alfredo Mantovano, the Minister for the Interior, Matteo Piantedosi, the Minister for Education and Merit, Giuseppe Valditara, and the technical members. The meeting was convened following a mass mailing of emails containing bomb threats sent yesterday and today to schools across the country.

“The aim,” reads a statement from Palazzo Chigi, “is to prevent unfounded threats from disrupting essential services and to ensure the safety of pupils, teachers, school staff and families, and, more generally, of the entire nation. Today, 3,778 schools received threats via email, according to provisional figures. There were 77 evacuations, and in 36 of these schools, lessons resumed that very morning. The sharp drop in the number of evacuations confirms that the guidance issued this morning by the Government to prefects and headteachers following yesterday’s events has been effective.”

“According to the timetable agreed during the meeting,” it is explained, “the Minister of the Interior will provide operational guidance to the Prefectures to ensure the continuity of public services in complete safety. This afternoon’s meeting will be followed, from tomorrow morning, by the establishment of a select technical working group to provide a framework of procedures and tools aimed at short-, medium- and long-term intervention measures. The measures will cover not only schools but also other potential targets. For each sector, the relevant central government departments will set out the necessary elements to quickly identify unfounded threats and to define criteria, procedures and chains of command.”