Police patrolled around schools last Thursday after bomb scare two days before. (source: TASR)
Welcome to your weekly commentary and overview of news from Slovakia. An eventful week for schools, after multiple bomb threats. After a far-right MEP released a dove in the European parliament, Fico and fellow Smer ministers have been getting in on the avian act.
If you have a suggestion on how to make this overview better, let me know at michaela.terenzani@spectator.sk.
Bomb scare at Slovak schools raises questions
May 8 was Slovaks’ second consecutive Wednesday off, as the country marked a public holiday, Victory over Fascism Day, to commemorate the end of World War II. For many pupils around the country, however, it was not the only extraordinary day last week.
On the day before the national holiday, Tuesday, a rather incoherent email, typed in all-caps and containing bomb threats and ISIS-style rhetoric, emptied hundreds of primary schools around Slovakia. Pupils were sent home or evacuated into other public buildings, and police spent all day checking schools. The chaos that ensued affected tens of thousands of families.
The incident sparked fear in children and their parents, revealed gaps in evacuation plans and security measures – and had many in the country thinking about new security challenges in a time of hybrid war.
Complications around the threat
A similar incident had occurred the Friday before, when dozens of schools in Bratislava received an emailed bomb threat.
The bomb scares affected a total of 1,544 schools, plus 110 bank buildings and a further 40 shops belonging to an electronics retailer. The police are working on the theory that the two incidents may have the same background.
In both cases, the offending emails originated from addresses run from Russian domains – on Friday, it was seyfulllah@mail.ru, on Tuesday arealll@list.ru. “We are in your country now,” the email that schools received on Tuesday read in Slovak.
