site.btaHead of National System 112 Directorate: Terrorist Attack Alerts Submitted on 112 Emergency Number Up 206.5% in 2023

The alerts about terrorist attacks submitted on the 112 emergency phone number, including bomb threats, grew by 206.5% in 2023, Marina Velinova, head of the National System 112 Directorate at the Interior Ministry, said in an interview for BTA. A total of 387 alerts about bomb threats were registered last year and 22 alerts since the start of 2024, she specified, recalling the many threats over the phone and e-mail about bombs in schools across Bulgaria. 

In 2023, a total of 3,760,862 calls were made to 112, up by 4.49% from 2022. Regulated calls related to specific requests for help accounted for 54% of all calls and numbered 2,030,361, down by 0.34% from a year earlier. Unregulated calls that are not within the competence of the emergency reaction services remain a problem: in 2023, these accounted for 46% of all calls, up by 11.1% year on year. Calls misusing the emergency phone number decreased by 5.4% and those registered as a prank, by 10.8%. Calls made to ask for information increased by 7.9%. 

The biggest relative share of calls (44.68%) were referred to the police, followed by those to the emergency medical service (38.30%), the fire department (4.8%), and other services and departments (10.22%), Velinova told BTA. 

Compared to 2022, the number of alerts referred to the police increased by 6.61%, those to the fire department by 16.6%, and those to other services and departments by 16.94%. The alerts about property crime went down by 6.1%, while those for crimes against the person grew by 3.9%. Alerts about traffic accidents went up by 7.6%.

The average time to service an alert submitted on 112 is three minutes; a priority incident takes under 90 seconds to service. A 112 phone operator receives 10,479 alerts on average during a 12-hour shift. The biggest number of calls are made in the morning when people go to work and in the evening after 5:30 pm when they head home.