Egyptian billionaire offers to buy island for refugees

Egyptian billionaire Naguib Sawiris has offered to buy a Mediterranean island off the coast of Greece or Italy and develop it to shelter refugees fleeing from the Syrian civil war and other conflicts.

The business tycoon first announced the initiative through Twitter on Tuesday. His tweets were shared hundreds of times within a few hours. 

More than 2,300 people have died at sea trying to reach Europe since January, many of them Syrians who fled their country's civil war, according to International Organisation for Migration.

Sawiris said in a television interview the he plans to approach the governments of Greece and Italy saying he believed his plan could definitely work.

"Of course it is feasible," Sawiris told AFP. "You have dozens of islands which are deserted and could accommodate hundreds of thousands of refugees."

Sawiris said an island off Greece or Italy could cost between $10mn and $100mn, but added the "main thing is investment in infrastructure".

“Both countries have many deserted islands and with the economic crisis they are facing, I’m sure both governments will consider this proposal,” he told Egyptian TV anchor Khairy Ramadan on the CBC satellite channel on Thursday.

“If they sell an island to us and agree to give it political autonomy, we could transform it into a functioning new city,” added the telecoms billionaire.

There would be "temporary shelters to house the people, then you start employing the people to build housing, schools, universities, hospitals.

"And if things improve, whoever wants to go back (to their homeland) goes back," said Sawiris, whose family developed the popular El Gouna resort on Egypt's Red Sea coast.

“My family took an empty piece of land and transformed it into a functioning city which now houses 32,000 people,” he told Ramadan. “My plan is very possible and I will send letters to the prime ministers of both countries immediately.”

He conceded such a plan could face challenges, including the likely difficulty of persuading Greece or Italy to sell an island, and the bureaucratic maze of jurisdiction and customs regulations.

But those who took shelter would be treated as "human beings," he said. "The way they are being treated now, they are being treated like cattle."

When asked about helping Egyptians instead, Sawiris replied by saying that he already is.

"This is a separate issue and we [Egyptians] should be thankful that we aren't the refugees. If the previous government stayed in power, we would have been in the same position as those fleeing their countries," said Sawiris, referring to the presidency of Mohamed Morsi who was ousted in a military coup in 2013. 

The Egyptian economy has been in a dire situation with Gulf countries pumping billions of dollars to keep the country afloat. 

Sawiris is the chief executive of Orascom TMT, which operates mobile telephone networks in a number of Middle Eastern and African countries as well as Korea. He also owns Egyptian satellite television channel ONTV.