Multiple schools across Cyprus were evacuated on Tuesday morning after receiving bomb threats via email.
Police have traced the messages to Russian IP addresses known for targeting European educational institutions.
The Ministry of Education’s Health and Safety Office immediately instructed school administrators to implement established security protocols, head officer Elias Markatzis told Philenews.
Schools activated evacuation procedures, gathering students in designated safe areas while police conducted thorough searches of classrooms and common areas. No suspicious items were found, and students later returned to their classrooms.
“The protocol is not made public for tactical reasons,” Markatzis said. “It contains instructions for various threat levels and we don’t want potential perpetrators to know how schools respond to such incidents.”
The protocol was updated in collaboration with police following similar mass threatening messages sent to schools last academic year.
School administrators received training through specialised seminars and were contacted via an emergency line established for such incidents.
Parents were informed about the evacuations through messages from parent associations, which reported that students remained calm throughout the procedure.
The threats are being handled under a joint protocol implemented by police, the Ministry of Education, and the Fire Service.
