Another day of panicked children and failing institutions, as the police remains incapable of tracking down the source of the dozens of emailed bomb threats that force daily evacuations of elementary and high schools in Skopje.

They were preparing to go out for breakfast when a teacher ran in and told the children to grab our jackets, to go “play”. The children started shouting “bomb, bomb”, a parent said about the evacuations today that targeted a dozen schools in the capital.
The drama is hardest on the lower grades, where the children suffer scares, but are also often left alone for hours, while their parents scramble to leave work and go pick them up. The police presence adds to the tensions. Some schools have begun to organize dry runs for the next bomb threat, to prepare for a calmer evacuation.

The threats have been coming in since late October. Initially the public expected that the perpetrators will be caught quickly, but this proved beyond the abilities of the police. The organizers of the campaign sometimes target government institutions, transportation nodes and media outlets, but the schools are their primary aim.