In September 2008 nineteen tourists were kidnapped from the desert in Egypt and taken to Libya The tourists including five Germans, five Italians, four Egyptians and a Romanian were on a guided tour of a certain area of interest in the desert when masked gunmen apprehended and abducted them. Three days later it was revealed that the tourists were taken to Libya and demands were made in exchange for their safe release.



With the Egyptian property market growing in strength every day, how will this most recent event affect the booming economic state? It is predicted that investing in a property in Egypt will see a potential 20% growth over the next three years however with this most recent security issue there is some fear that this might frighten potential foreign investment away. This article looks at the security issue in Egypt to establish whether it is safe.

This most recent event needs to be put into the context of the history of Egypt as this is not the first occurrence of this type. Since the early nineties there has been sporadic activity by certain terrorist groups that have performed a number of serious attacks targeting tourists. The most notorious being the 17 November 1997 terrorist attack where gunmen literally opened fire on a crowd of tourists killing 58 tourists and 4 Egyptian nationals.

Bearing in mind that the Egyptian tourist industry is 11% of the country's gross domestic product any attack like this is potentially devastating to the economy. More recently on 24th April 2006 a bomb went off at a major hotel killing 22 people and once again denting the Egyptian touristy trade. There have been no incidents since then as security forces have tightened up to protect foreign nationals living or visiting the country.

When considering the affect that this most recent event might have on the projected growth of investing in property in Egypt it is important to draw attention to the fact that this most recent event is thought to be the work of bandits as opposed to terrorists. They are thought to be holding the tourists for ransom for financial gain as opposed to political bargaining or the more sinister purposes that the cowardly extremist groups indulge in.

The security services have improved so dramatically because they are aware how security brings sound investment in the country. Like any other developed countries there are issues of security, when comparing to London we saw many attacks on British soil by the IRA through the nineties. The rate was comparable to that of Egypt and in July 2007 which killed 52 people making it one of the most serious attacks in the last 10 years.

Investing in property in Egypt is a sound investment at the moment, before the security services begin to pay dividends and the economy is still in the early stages of the boom. There have been no attacks on residential areas and the major developed areas are well policed. This most recent event happened in an isolated part of the Sahara desert which is impossible to police, where as the developed areas are much safer.