Andy Wirth, a former key figure of Neom’s ski enterprise, disclosed to the BBC an unsettling event involving Abdul Rahim al-Huwaiti he learned about mere weeks before his 2020 departure from the US to join the operation. Wirth’s inquiries about the expulsions consistently fell on deaf ears, or were met with unconvincing responses.
“The callousness was palpable. It reeked of the oppression exerted on these individuals…You don’t crush them underfoot in your race to progress,” he reminisced.
Plagued by disillusion with the project’s leadership, Wirth closed his chapter with Neom within his first year.
Expressing similar concerns is the head of a UK-based desalination company, who rejected a 2022 contract worth $100m with The Line, another controversial project.
“May be a haven for the select few working in hi-tech, but what about everyone else?” questioned Malcolm Aw, the CEO of Solar Water PLC.
Aw fervently argued for the consideration of locals as invaluable resources, owing to their innate understanding of the region. “Incorporate their insights, enhance, invent, reinvent, but not at the cost of their homes.”
Individuals displaced due to these developments are tight-lipped, logically apprehensive that their communications with international media might escalate jeopardy for their imprisoned kin.
But the BBC managed to reach out to those uprooted under another Saudi Vision 2030 initiative. Over a million people were moved for the Jeddah Central program, intended to house an opera house, sports area, premium commercial and residential buildings in the western Saudi Arabian metropolis.
Nader Hijazi, pseudonymously used here for privacy, was brought up in Aziziyah — one among the approximately 63 districts affected by these reconstructions. Hijazi’s world was turned upside down with the short-notice demolition of his father’s house in 2021.
Hijazi depicts the photos of his erstwhile neighborhood as distressing, reminiscent of scenes from a conflict zone. “They’re waging a war on us, a war on our identities.”
Two arrests in conjunction with the Jeddah displacements have been reported to the BBC by Saudi campaigners — one individual for resisting eviction, another for circulating pictures of anti-demolition graffiti on social media.
Additionally, a relative of a detainee at Jeddah’s Dhahban Central Prison revealed accounts of another 15 individuals allegedly detained there — supposedly for bidding adieu in one of the districts marked for demolition. Confirming the veracity of these claims remains challenging due to limited access to the Saudi prison system.
In a survey by ALQST of 35 displaced residents from Jeddah’s multiple localities, none reported receipt of compensation or sufficient warning as per local regulations. Further troubling is that more than half reported being coerced to vacate their homes under the threat of incarceration.
