FARO HAS returned to normal after a bomb scare earlier in the week saw the local authority activate its emergency plans to the highest alert level for two days.
The alert followed an anonymous phone call to a Portuguese newspaper based in Vila Real de Santo António.
The administrative employee who took the call said a man informed her that a bomb was to explode in Faro. She informed the authorities but said she could not understand when and where the bomb was placed.
The call, which happened on Monday morning, came from a man who spoke in Spanish, then in French and finally in Euskadi, the unofficial language that is still used in the Spanish Basque region.
This fact made it credible that it could be an attack by ETA, the terrorist organisation that defends the independence of the Basque region, in the north of Spain.
However, Isilda Gomes, Faro Civil Governor, said on Wednesday that after analysing the available information, the local authorities concluded that the contact did not correspond to the “modus operandi” of that terrorist group.
With the situation in Faro back to normal, the local criminal investigators are focusing on looking for the man who made the phone call.
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