Neom, a part of Saudi vision 2030, is causing havoc in Saudi Arabia where authorities have given a green signal to clear out villages and people for the successful completion of the project.
Planned by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Neom is a $500 billion smart city project which needs large acres of land to be build upon. For the same, Saudi Arabia using destructive and deadly force. In a talk with the BBC, Colonel Rabih Alenezi, a former intelligence officer spoke that he was instructed to remove villagers to clear space for The Line, a component of Neom. It also mentioned that one individual was fatally shot while protesting the evictions.
Official government data indicates that over 6,000 individuals have been relocated due to the project, although the UK-based human rights organization ALQST assesses a higher figure.
The Saudi government and Neom management have declined to provide a comment.
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In a report, BBC also shared that three villages, al-Khuraybah, Sharma and Gayal which were were home to the Huwaitat tribe, characterized as “rebels” in the government directive, were also destroyed for the project.
“Neom is the centrepiece of Mohamed Bin Salman’s ideas. That’s why he was so brutal in dealing with the Huwaitat,” Col Alenezi told the BBC. He has now moved to the UK for his own safety.
The Line, a 200-meter-wide and 170-kilometer-long development, is being promoted as a city without cars. According to the BBC, only 2.4 kilometers of the project are projected to be finished by 2030.
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According to a report by The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) in 2022, MBS instructed workers to build 10 palaces, each larger than a football field. The publication examined the project’s blueprint, revealing that these residences could be priced at up to $400 million each.
The visionary megacity is said to be 33 times larger than New York, spanning an area of 26,500 square kilometers along the Aqaba Gulf and Saudi Arabia‘s Red Sea coast. The name Neom combines the Greek term “Neo” with the Arabic word for “future.”
