Sharjah: Police on Thursday announced a temporary malfunction with the emergency number 999.
In the event of an emergency, residents were instructed to call 06-5631111 until the problem has been fixed.
In a public announcement, Sharjah Police said: “Please note that there is a temporary malfunction at the emergency number 999 for the city of Sharjah, in case of an emergency please call 06-5631111.”
In non-emergency events, residents can continue to call 901.
In 2018, the non-emergency line in Dubai received 541,722 calls while 999 received 5,351,009 calls, but Major General Kamel Butti Al Suwaidi, Director of the Operations Department of Dubai Police said more than 70 per cent of the calls coming on the emergency line were non-emergency in nature.
That, he said, was a high percentage compared to other countries like the US, where non-emergency calls on the emergency line contributed just 20 per cent.
The majority of calls to 901 were for traffic related matters with 55,752 calls, while 41,048 were from people who wanted addresses and numbers for specific police stations or departments.
