A total of 148,411 phone calls were made to the 112 emergency helpline between January and May 2025, Security Minister Byron Camilleri shared in Parliament on Monday.

Responding to Opposition MP Ivan Bartolo, Camilleri shared how many calls were made on the national emergency helpline, and how many of these phone calls were forwarded to the Emergency Department, the Civil Protection Department (CPD), the Police, and to the Armed Forces of Malta.

From this total, 68,663 phone calls made on 112 "should have never been made on this number," Minister Camilleri shared; this equates to nearly half (46%) of all phone calls made on the national helpline. This leaves 79,748 emergency calls that were rightly made to this phone number.

Additionally, 29,087 calls were forwarded to the Emergency Department - which also handles ambulances.

A further 3,557 calls were forwarded to the CPD during this time span. Meanwhile, the Police were transferred 2,886 of these calls, while the Armed Forces dealt with just 39 of them.

The busiest such month for the emergency helpline (112) was May with 32,238 total calls. In descending order, the next busiest months for this year so far were January (30,545 calls), March (30,381 calls), April (29,360 calls), and February in last (25,887 calls).

Despite nearly 2,000 less calls being made to 112 over this month, January was actually the busiest monthly period for the Emergency Department to respond to emergencies being dialled through this helpline. 6,182 phone calls were forwarded for the potential use of ambulances in the first month of the year, followed by 5,095 in February, then 5,982 in March, 5,756 in April, and 6,072 such calls throughout May.

May was the busiest month for the CPD, in regard to handling emergency phone calls, as 923 of them during this most recent period were related to this Department. The CPD handled 734 such calls in March, 673 in April, 668 in January, and 559 calls in February.

The Police were forwarded 495 phone calls in each of January and February, followed by 666 in March, 602 in April, and 628 in May.

The Armed Forces were transferred seven calls in January, six calls in February, five calls in March, 11 calls in April, and 10 calls in May.

Minister Camilleri appealed that the public remembers to refer to the 112 helpline responsibly, stating that every phone call made on it could be a someone's life on the line.