Maldives fights rumours of island sales to Saudi Arabia with clampdown
Police officers on the island of Magoodhoo in Faafu atoll forced a journalist working as a stringer for The New York Times to sign a statement saying he would not interview islanders about the rumoured multi-billion investment from Saudi Arabia.
02 Apr 2017, 9:00 AM
This article was first published on Scroll. It has been republished with permission.
In the island state of the Maldives, which consists of 20 island clusters or atolls, Faafu is often called the 21st atoll. In other words, at the very bottom of the government’s priority.
Hassan Moosa, a journalist with the news website Maldives Independent, sensed this bitterness in his maiden visit to the atoll in February. Faafu’s five inhabited islands housed less than 5,000 people, its residents admitted, but does a lack of electorate mean they be last in the queue for the most basic of amenities – schools, banks, roads, hospitals?
That’s why they had welcomed President Abdulla Yameen’s announcement of a mega project in their atoll. Saudi Arabia’s royal family had plans to invest over $10 billion for a French Riviera-style mixed-development in Faafu, replete with “residential high-class development, many tourist resorts and airports”. If successful, it was touted to be the next Dubai.
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