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Suppose I own a private CCTV/alarm at home in Europe, where 112 is the emergency number. The private system is not backed by an operation centre (I mean those that will phone you in case of break, ask you for safe word or anti-cohercion word and, in case, call the police on your behalf).

Suppose I need to call the Emergecy service of my country while traveling in Europe, in case someone breaks into my home. So, the emergency is happening in a different place than where I am.

If I dial 112 on my phone, I'll be surely connected to the emergency service of the destination country, that answer for emergencies happening locally. E.g. if me or someone near me required medical attention or I am victim of crime where I am.

I don't know how to behave in these unwanted situations, so I made some options.

Can I ask the foreign operator to redirect the call to the 112 of the "Home country name"? Does it work?

Or must I ask a family member, neighbour, who is home, to call the emergency on my behalf?

Or I could save the phone number of the local police office and explain why I called them and not 112.

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    You shouldn't call 112 (190 or 911) in the place you currently is. Often they are not fully connected within a country, they certainly won't be able to connect you to another country's 911 line.
    – André
    Commented Jul 28 at 13:54
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    If the alarm isn't configured to directly call a monitoring service then I'd call the number of the local police station in my home town.
    – Laconic Droid
    Commented Jul 28 at 14:39
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    Interestingly, we had perhaps an inverse situation recently. On holiday in the UK from Australia, our son had an injury and we wanted to call the non-emergency 111 line from our Australian phones, which would not let us, and we couldn't find any local numbers that would. In the end we had to use my in-laws phones.
    – user25730
    Commented Jul 29 at 2:56
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    The police get enough false/non-urgent/malicious 911 (or 999) calls, that they wouldn't make it easy to call from overseas where there is zero chance of prosecution. If it's a more serious emergency than just a break-in (e.g. a life urgently at risk), local police may be able to help. In mountainous areas near a border, a mobile call may connect to a neighbouring country, and emergency operators are experienced with that and know who to contact. And if someone is urgently in danger (they've called you because they're in imminent danger) local police should help and be able to contact someone.
    – Stuart F
    Commented Jul 29 at 11:06
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    In the UK 101 is for non-emergency police enquiries, 111 is for non-life threatening medical issues.
    – Peter Green
    Commented Jul 29 at 18:21

2 Answers 2

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Call the local police station in your town/city. If there is more than one, make sure you have all applicable numbers available. If your local police station is not staffed 24 hours then find that nearest one that is.

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    And make sure you have a local number, as in some countries they have given all police stations the same country wide number, a bit like the 112.
    – Willeke ♦
    Commented Jul 28 at 19:37
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    And look up the phone number to call before you leave, as sometimes it takes a while to find the full number for police, etc. And don't forget to start your phone call with "I am currently vacationing in Italy, and my alarm system at my home/office/etc in Frostbite Falls Minnesota just triggered...
    – Mark Stewart
    Commented Jul 29 at 15:33
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    You could also call them while at home and discuss with them if they are the right place to call in the first place
    – til_b
    Commented Jul 30 at 10:05
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Find out (i.e. Google) the locality's police station's direct phone number where the house you're remotely monitoring and save it on your phone.

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