Sarajevo bomb scare: Police arrest eight teens after weeks of fake threats to schools

Eight teenagers have been arrested for making fake bomb threats to schools in Sarajevo, Bosnia, according to police. These threats, which began on October 14, have caused significant disruptions in teaching.

Police spokesperson Mersiha Novalic confirmed that several high schools in Sarajevo received new threats on Tuesday morning. Students were evacuated, and police inspected the schools, as they have done for each of these occurrences.

The threats, primarily sent by email and occasionally by phone, have been happening almost daily since early October. Nearly all 35 high schools and several primary schools in Sarajevo have been targeted.

Ena, a final-year student at a Sarajevo high school, told AFP, "Since the beginning of October, we haven't had any classes for about 10 days... or we've been evacuated in the middle of class."

According to an AFP count, around 100 bomb threats have been reported in three weeks. Prosecutors revealed that the first suspect arrested was a 16-year-old student who made 49 fake bomb threats in 11 days. Among the eight arrested, seven are minors, and one is 18 years old. Novalic stated that five of them have been placed in a specialized educational center for minor delinquents.

Under Bosnian law, teenagers aged between 16 and 18, if found guilty of "threatening security" and raising a false alarm, can face a maximum sentence of five years in prison. Police cautioned that such a large number of fake threats affects their work, as they must follow protocol for such situations, organize evacuations, and carry out searches to check for devices. Inspector Sasa Petrovic told regional broadcaster TVSA, "Every email, no matter how trivial, needs to be investigated."