Officials in Slovakia ordered mass evacuations after schools and banks across the country received more than 1,000 bomb threats in a single day.
Unidentified suspects reportedly started sending emails on May 7 claiming that explosive devices were placed in hundreds of schools across the country’s eight regions.
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The threats triggered countrywide protective actions as local police with sniffer dogs and bomb disposal experts were called out repeatedly.
Meanwhile, the threat alerts issued by the authorities prompted mass evacuations as officials said that the number of confirmed threats was growing with the passage of time.
Educational activities were suspended at several schools and educational institutes as the country’s law enforcement agencies initiated investigations into the alerts.
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Slovakia’s national police later said that as many as 110 banks and 40 electrical stores also received the bomb threats.
Following the overwhelming numbers of bomb threats, officials in Slovakia said they were taking the threats “as a particularly serious crime of terrorist attack”.
While the authorities did not disclose the full content of the threatening emails, they, however, have revealed that the emails were written in Slovak and were sent from a Russian email address.
Slovakia’s authorities went on to add that the threats have resulted in creating psychological stress across the country, as they warned that the disruption to educational activities could have “far-reaching consequences.”
It is pertinent to mention that the suspects behind the threats could face life imprisonment if caught by the authorities.
