Billionaire Naguib Sawiris is moving forward with his plan to buy an island to house refugees on.
The Egyptian businessman, who is Africa’s 10th richest man, told his followers on Twitter back in September that he wanted to buy an island from Greece or Italy to house refugees.
The tweet got such a huge response that Sawiris announced later that month that he would take public donations for the project and establish a joint-stock company with $100 million in capital. It’s unclear how much of his money would be involved.
Now a spokesperson says Sawiris is studying 17 Greek islands that would work for his plans, and is more optimistic about his bold plan.
“But due to the delicacy of the issue he has not disclosed specific reasons for his optimism,” the spokesperson told Forbes.
Sawiris is trying to find out which island could accommodate the highest number of refugees, while trying to get approval from the Greek government to purchase an island, which he would name Aylan Island to honor the 3-year-old Syrian boy whose drowned body washed up on a Turkish beach.
