How to house the refugees fleeing from war

SIR – On Thursday night the BBC again highlighted the shocking humanitarian disaster unfolding in Syria.

It subsequently featured a piece on “King Abdullah Economic City” in Saudi Arabia, which is being built to house two million citizens but which, with the downturn in oil prices, is likely to remain largely empty.

International aid should now be diverted to complete the city so that it may house those displaced from Syria, redressing the Arab world’s reluctance to assist in the crisis on their doorstep.

Geoff Pringle

Long Sutton, Somerset

SIR – The suggestion by John Atkins (Letters, February 6) that large cruise ships should be deployed to house and help resettle those fleeing war-torn countries is well-meaning but misguided.

Those elected to run rich, secure countries have a moral responsibility to help create stable environments for the people of countries not so fortunate. This will never be achieved by the creation of yet more methods of containing displaced people in and around our borders.

The United Nations should requisition coastal tracts of the migrants’ homelands, throw a ring of steel around them and start building new city states, containing the structures needed to allow people to live in safety and build their own democracies.

Peter Mucci

Southampton