Police have confirmed that a series of bomb threats sent to 11 international schools across the Netherlands were a false alarm.

Schools in Maastricht, Eindhoven and Utrecht ordered staff and students to leave the campus last Tuesday after receiving messages in English that bombs had been placed in the building.

Police searched the premises but found nothing and the buildings were given the all-clear. Later on similar messages were directed at schools in Leeuwarden, Groningen, Hilversum and The Hague.

A police spokesman said that the schools had evacuated the buildings on their own initiative as a precaution. Enquiries are continuing to identify the culprits but police are treating the incidents as linked.