Skopje, 28 October 2022 (MIA) — Citizens should keep calm – the authorities will respond to this challenge; the false bomb alerts were meant to send a disturbing message during very important moments for the state in order to harm its reputation, according to security expert and National Coordinator for Border Management Vladimir Pivovarov in a comment for MIA regarding the bomb threats emailed to several schools in Skopje over the past three days. According to Pivovarov, similar threats had been sent in the past not only in the country but also in Serbia, Montenegro and Albania. He said they were related to pivotal "visits, events, or political decision-making.” “They start at such moments. That's how it started with us,” the security expert said. “The timing of the first five alerts coincided exactly with the arrival of the European Commissioner [Ylva Johansson] and the European Commission President [Ursula] von der Leyen and the signing of the Frontex agreement,” he said. Despite the expenses of sending bomb squads to inspect schools’ premises, he said, each bomb alert “must be taken seriously because we don’t immediately know whether it is false or true.” “This happened in Serbia for a while and then it stopped. In Zagreb as well,” he added. Pivovarov said the alerts in Serbia coincided with important political events such as the visits of EU Special Representative Miroslav Lajčák for the EU-mediated negotiations between Belgrade and Prishtina. Asked about the sender of the bomb claims, Pivovarov said they could be from anywhere. “From what I see, in all the cases in the region the threats were detected as coming from foreign countries. So no one has dared to send a threat from their own country because they would be discovered very easily. This is how they usually hide their tracks,” he said. On Thursday, Interior Minister Oliver Spasovski said the false alerts may have been sent for “political, geostrategic, maybe even business reasons.” “At this stage we practically know the emails. We know where they were sent from. We have this exact information, and we are working hard on finding the perpetrator,” Spasovski said. Eight Skopje high schools were evacuated Wednesday after they reported receiving bomb threats via email. Nine schools were evacuated Thursday, and another one Friday, over new bomb threats. In all cases, anti-terrorist squads inspected the premises for explosives and said the bomb claims had been false. mr/