Wave of false bomb threats spreads across region

Since late March, media outlets in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Croatia have been reporting on the phenomenon. In Croatia, threats to shopping centres and schools in Zagreb, Split-Dalmatia County and Dubrovnik-Neretva County began arriving in mid-April.

According to regional media, the incidents involve bomb threats sent by email, mainly targeting primary and secondary schools and shopping centres, leading to evacuations and the suspension of classes in dozens of schools.

The first reports were recorded on 30 March, when several primary schools in Banja Luka, Bosnia and Herzegovina, were evacuated and classes suspended.

The following day, shopping centres in Belgrade and Nis, Serbia, were evacuated after receiving threats.

By mid-April, a wave of threats had emptied hotels, shopping centres, and schools across the region.

On 16 April, following a bomb threat at shopping centres in Sarajevo, Austrian President Alexander Van der Bellen was evacuated from a hotel during his three-day visit to Bosnia and Herzegovina.

According to Sarajevo police, an email message also contained a death threat against the Bosniak member of the BiH Presidency, Denis Becirovic.

The same day, the “Tamis” hotel in Pancevo, Serbia, where a seminar of pro-European opposition parties was being held, was evacuated.

A day later, shopping centres in Montenegro were evacuated following threats targeting locations in Budva and Podgorica, while schools in Niksic, and in Zenica, Bosnia and Herzegovina, also received threats.

Three days later, bomb threats were also reported at two large shopping centres in the Macedonian capital of Skopje.

On Monday, threats were sent to two secondary schools in Bar, Montenegro, and to dozens of primary and secondary schools in Bosnia and Herzegovina's Herzegovina-Neretva Canton, leading to the suspension of classes.

On Monday morning, bomb threats were also sent by email to official addresses of schools in Mostar, Konjic, Capljina, Jablanica, Stolac, and Neum.

On Tuesday, bomb threats were sent to schools and police authorities in Tuzla Canton in Bosnia and Herzegovina, again forcing the suspension of classes.

Srdjan Micic, head of the counter-terrorism department of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina Ministry of the Interior, said on Tuesday that police have managed to identify most of those sending false threats.

In an interview with N1 television, he said that in earlier similar cases the perpetrators were mostly students, often minors.

“Their initial goal was to stop schools from working,” Micic said, adding that the senders of false threats later “got carried away” and began sending similar messages to shopping centres and various government institutions.