Neom: forces ordered to kill to clear land for eco-city

Dozens of global companies, including several British, are involved in the construction of Neom.

The area where Neom is being built has been described as a perfect “blank canvas” by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. But according to his government, more than 6,000 people have been displaced for the project – and the UK-based human rights group ALQST estimates the figure is higher.

The BBC analyzed satellite images of three of the demolished villages: al-Khuraybah, Sharma and Gayal. Homes, schools and hospitals have been wiped off the map.

Colonel Alenezi, who went into exile in the UK last year, says the authorization order he was asked to issue was for al-Khuraybah, 4.5km south of The Line. The villages were mainly populated by the Huwaitat tribe, who have inhabited the Tabuk region in the northwest of the country for generations.

He said the April 2020 order stipulated that the Huwaitat was made up of “numerous rebels” and that “anyone who continued to resist (the expulsion) should be killed, and therefore it authorized the use of lethal force against whoever remained in their house.”

He dodged the mission for made-up medical reasons, he told the BBC, but the mission nevertheless took place.

Abdul Rahim al Huwaiti refused to allow a land registry committee to assess his property and was shot dead by Saudi authorities a day later during the mine clearance mission. He had already published several videos on social networks to protest against the evictions.

A statement issued at the time by Saudi state security claimed that Al-Huwaiti had opened fire on security forces and that they were forced to return fire. Human rights organizations and the United Nations said he was killed simply because he resisted his deportation.

The BBC was unable to independently verify Colonel Alenezi’s comments regarding lethal force.

But a source close to the workings of the Saudi intelligence directorate told us that the colonel’s testimony – regarding both how the authorization order was communicated and what it said – was consistent with what they knew about these missions more generally. They also said the colonel’s level of seniority would have been appropriate to lead the mission.

At least 47 other villagers were arrested after resisting the evictions, many of whom were prosecuted on terrorism-related charges, according to the UN and ALQST. Among them, 40 are still in detention, including five on death row, specifies the ALQST.

Several were arrested simply for publicly mourning Al-Huwaiti’s death on social media, the group said.

Saudi authorities say those forced to move to The Line have been offered compensation. But the amounts paid were much lower than the amount promised, according to AlQst.

According to Colonel Alenezi, “(Neom) is the centerpiece of Mohamed Bin Salman’s ideas. This is why he has been so brutal in his relations with the Huwaitat.”

A former senior executive at the Neom ski project told the BBC he heard about the killing of Abdul Rahim al-Huwaiti weeks before leaving his native United States to take the job in 2020. Andy Wirth says repeatedly asked his employers about the expulsions, but was not satisfied with the answers.

“It just smacked of something terrible that had been imposed on these people… You don’t step on their throat with the heels of your boots to be able to move forward,” he said.

He left the project less than a year after joining, disenchanted with its management.

The chief executive of a UK desalination company who pulled out of a $100m (£80m) project for The Line in 2022 is also extremely critical.

“That might be a good thing for some high-tech people living in this area, but what about the rest?” said Malcolm Aw, CEO of Solar Water PLC.

The local population should be seen as a valuable asset, he added, given their good knowledge of the region.

“We must ask for this advice to improve, create, recreate, without deleting it.”

Displaced villagers were extremely reluctant to comment, fearing that speaking to foreign media would further endanger their detained loved ones.

But we spoke with those who were evicted elsewhere under another Saudi Vision 2030 project. More than a million people have been displaced by the Jeddah Central project in the western city of Saudi Arabia, which will include an opera house, a sports district and high-end residential and commercial units.

Nader Hijazi (pseudonym) grew up in Aziziyah, one of the 63 neighborhoods affected by these demolitions. His father’s house was razed in 2021, for which he received less than a month’s warning.

Hijazi says the photos he saw of his old neighborhood were shocking, saying they looked like a war zone.

“They are waging a war on people, a war on our identities.”

Saudi activists spoke to the BBC about two individuals arrested last year in connection with the Jeddah demolitions – one for physically resisting the eviction, the other for posting photos of anti-demolition graffiti on his social networks.

And a relative of an inmate at Jeddah’s Dhahban Central Prison said he had heard of 15 others detained there – apparently for organizing a farewell meeting in one of the areas designated for demolition. The difficulty of contacting people incarcerated in Saudi prisons meant that we were unable to verify this.

ALQST interviewed 35 people evicted from Jeddah neighborhoods. Of these, none reported receiving adequate compensation or warning, in accordance with local law, and more than half reported being forced to leave their homes under threat of arrest.