Authorities in the US city of Springfield said on Thursday they had ordered the evacuation of city hall following a bomb threat, amid unfounded criticism from Donald Trump of Haitian migrants living in the town.
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“Due to a bomb threat to various Springfield offices today, City Hall is closed,” reads the official Facebook account of this small city of 60,000 inhabitants located in the state of Ohio.
Since Monday, Springfield has been at the heart of a heated controversy, sparked by the radical right and fanned by Donald Trump, who falsely claimed that Haitian migrants there were attacking dogs and cats to eat them.
Although the local police have categorically denied this theory, as have many information-verifying media outlets including AFP, the Republican candidate has repeated it several times since Tuesday, after spreading it during his televised debate against Kamala Harris.
The White House, for its part, denounced a “conspiracy theory (…) with racist roots.”
“This kind of talk, this kind of misinformation, is dangerous because people will believe it, no matter how absurd and stupid it is, and they may react in a way that causes injuries,” John Kirby, a spokesman for the executive branch’s National Security Council, said Tuesday.
But Donald Trump and his close associates have so far shown no willingness to back down from their claims.
“Ohio is flooded with undocumented migrants, most from Haiti, who are taking over cities and towns at an unprecedented rate,” the Republican candidate wrote again on Thursday.
