Bob Geldof with Nelson Mandela at a Make Poverty History rally in London

Irish rocker Bob Geldof on Friday offered to house four Syrian families at his two homes in Britain, calling the migrants crisis a "sickening disgrace".

"I can't stand what is happening. I cannot stand what it does to us," Geldof told Ireland's RTE radio.

"Me and Jeanne would be prepared to take three families immediately in our place in Kent and a family in our flat in London immediately," he said.

Geldof said he and his partner Jeanne Marine could house the refugees "until such time as they can get going and get a purchase on their future."

The musician-turned-activist, who campaigns on a variety of social issues, said that the images of three-year-old Aylan Kurdi were a source of shame.
"I look at it with profound shame and a monstrous betrayal of who we are and what we wish to be".

The former frontman of Irish rock band the Boomtown Rats, Geldof founded the charity Band Aid in 1984 to raise money for famine relief in Ethiopia.

Last year he released a Band Aid 30 charity single with stars like Bono, Chris Martin and One Direction to promote the fight against Ebola in west Africa.