The dean of the Faculty of Security prof. Dr. Nikola Dujovski said that the purpose of false reports of bombs in high schools is to create fear and panic among the population and that the schools are not chosen randomly. Bomb scares, he says, are a “textbook hybrid threat”.

This trend started a few months ago, first in Serbia, Belgrade, Novi Sad, then Sarajevo. Now it’s happening in our country. Yes, it is a part of threats that for the time being remain only in the phase of wrongly sent messages, but the police have responsibilities and it is good that they act in that way. Children and teachers and everyone present in the schools must be immediately evacuated and taken to safety and the police investigate any reports of a bomb or any threat. It is being done and will be done in the coming period. The Ministry of Interior is building the capacities to be able to respond to such threats, intercept such messages, analyze them and prevent them, Professor Dujovski told the morning show on Macedonia’s national broadcaster.

The intentions of the people who send these messages, the dean of the Faculty of Security points out, to cause fear and panic among the population are more than evident.

It is probably not possible to do any more damage than the written message, but we certainly have to be cautious because simply the world, and this region, in particular, is very sensitive to such cyber threats and anything else that can cause anxiety. The schools are not chosen by chance, especially high schools. Because there, children travel independently, parents usually do not know what the process is while the children are there and this is exactly how to make a textbook hybrid threat, says Dujovski.

According to him, it is good that we exchange information in the NATO network because these issues are not only for Macedonia, nor are we the only country exposed to such pressures, and it is good to continue building our capacities.

I hope that this trend will calm down and I hope that the institutions will dedicate themselves to the level of the task, in fact, as before, said the dean of the Faculty of Security.

The Minister of Internal Affairs, Oliver Spasovski, announced yesterday that most of the bomb threats in high schools are located where they come from and that the Ministry is working on protection.

Yesterday in Skopje, there were false reports of bomb threats in nine high schools.