Percorso:ANSA > Nuova Europa > Analysis > Montenegro's ex concentration camp to become elite resort

Montenegro's ex concentration camp to become elite resort

Orascom to invest EUR 15 million, longterm lease for 49 years

30 December, 16:25

(ANSA) - TRIESTE - Montenegro's former concentration camp, Mamula, will become a luxury resort with 23 rooms, 2 restaurants, a spa, a swimming pool, a nightclub and a small marina.

The Parliament gave a green light to the project signed in February between the Montenegrin government and the Swiss-Egyptian company Orascom.

The contract entails a longterm lease for 49 years at the symbolic price of 1.5 euro per year per square meter of the island including the fortress, equivalent to 4000 Euros per month. The circular island with a diameter of 200 meters is dominated by 80% by the Austro-Hungarian fortress Mamula, which had been converted into a concentration camp by the fascist forces lead by Mussolini during World War II.

The contract envisions an investment of 15 million Euros by Orascom, which has also promised to build a memorial room to honour the victims.

It is estimated that more than two thousand men, women and children have been imprisoned in Campo Mamula between spring 1942 and autumn 1943, over 100 of whom were killed or starved to death.

Mamula is the second Orascom's project in Montenegro, which is also building a one billion Euros worth tourist town, Lustica Bay. (ANSA).

© Copyright ANSA - All rights reserved