A former Saudi military colonel and former intelligence officer told the BBC on record on Wednesday that the Saudi government ordered the military to kill indigenous people who resisted eviction from land that Riyadh wants to turn into state-of-the-art land. Told. Megacity” Neom.
Neom is believed to be the brainchild of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the country’s de facto ruler, who said in an interview that Neom hosts international music festivals and sports tournaments. , which says it aims to “compete with Miami” by offering a unique luxury resort. Providing options for the world’s richest people. The Saudi government also wants to house as many as 5 million people in a “green” facility in Neom, where government-run trains will be the only legal means of transport and fossil fuels will play a minimal role. Become.
The site where construction of Neom is currently underway is near the northernmost tip of the Red Sea in Tabuk province in northwestern Saudi Arabia. Mohammed bin Salman, commonly known by his initials MBS, insisted the desert area there was “empty” so the Saudi government could build an entirely new city with minimal disruption to local residents. However, the land is actually inhabited by the Huwaytat people, an ancient and often nomadic tribe.Any amount Huwaytat people 20,000 people They may ultimately be forced off their land by the Neom project. BBC I got it. The Saudi government itself announced on Wednesday that it estimates it has evacuated around 6,000 people from the area.
“For the Huwaytat people, Neom is built on our blood and bones,” said Huwaytat activist Alia Hayel Aboutyyah Al-Huwayti Said of guardian “It’s not for people who already live there!” It’s for tourists and people with money. But not for the original people who lived there. ”
Colonel Rabbi Arenezi told the BBC in a report published on Wednesday that Saudi military authorities gave him responsibility for evicting the Huwaytat people from land designated for Neom in 2020. The village of Al-Kuraiba called them “rebels.”
“Those who continue to resist, [eviction] I authorized the use of deadly force against those who remained in the home because they were to be killed,” Arenesi recalled the order ordering.
The former colonel, currently in exile in Britain, spoke in an interview on national television. The BBC noted that according to satellite images, al-Kuraibah appears to no longer exist. Arenesi’s claim that he was told to order the killing of those who resisted is consistent with reports of the violent removal of the Huwaytat people at the time. At the time, the killing of at least one tribesman by Saudi forces was recorded. The murder of Abdul Rahim al-Khuwaiti was an attempt by locals in Huwaytat to organize against the Saudi government in order to prevent Neom’s forced eviction.
Huwaiti was allegedly shot dead in his home in 2020 after refusing an official delegation sent to assess his property. Shortly before his death, Huwaiti published several videos on YouTube condemning his eviction.
“They started the process of removing people, starting with searching houses with the aim of removing people and evicting them from the land,” he said. with narrationAccording to the translation of guardian at that time. “They arrested anyone who opposed deportation, didn’t want to leave, wanted to stay.” [in] Their family doesn’t want money. ”
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Saudi authorities responded to protests after Huwaiti’s death, claiming he had assaulted police officers and had no choice but to shoot them.
United Nations human rights groups and experts estimate that about 40 other people have been arrested for resisting deportation, including some currently on death row. In May 2023, a United Nations group of experts released a report calling for time freedom from the Saudi government.
“Despite being charged with terrorism, he was arrested for resisting forced evictions in the name of the NEOM project and the construction of a 170km linear city called The Line,” the experts’ letter said. It is written, ” “Under international law, countries that have not yet abolished the death penalty can only impose the death penalty for the ‘most serious crimes’ involving intentional killing. We believe that the act in question meets this standard.” I don’t think so.”
The BBC could not independently confirm whether Arenesi and other Saudi officials had received orders to kill local residents resisting on behalf of Neom, and the Saudi government declined to comment on the matter. he pointed out. The report said the claims coincided with the timing of Huwaiti’s death, and at least one anonymous source corroborated the killing order.
Another person consulted for this article, Andy Wirth, who worked on the proposed ski resort in Neom for five months in 2020, expressed concerns about eviction during his stay, but said He said he did not receive an answer.
“I just smelled something horrible.” [that] These people were forcing us to… We have to make sure we don’t step on their throats with the heel of our boots in order to move forward,” he told the BBC.
Wirth has been one of the Neom project’s most vocal critics since leaving the project. In 2022, Wirth was alarmed, lamenting that Saudi authorities wanted to use explosives to dig artificial lakes on the land and create what he called “a large-scale open-pit mine.”
“We were hanging a building on the side of a cliff, and we didn’t even know the geology,” Wirth said at the time. bloomberg Read extensive coverage of the challenges faced by MBS’s signature projects. Wirth went on to say that the project suffers from “not being objectively connected to reality.”
Two years later, in addition to widespread human rights concerns, Neom appears to be struggling to meet its ambitious goals in a timely manner. Many of Neom’s proposed facilities include sports and concert venues, luxury beach resorts, and innovation offices, but the most well-known is The Line. It’s a skyscraper project that Saudi officials say will one day house 1.5 million people. The line is designed to be a 166-mile-long silver building with its own in-house commuter rail system and an entire walkable neighborhood within it, all powered by “green” technology.
In April, Bloomberg reported, citing unnamed sources, that Neom planners had drastically lowered their expectations for the line’s progress, predicting that by 2030 there would be 300,000 people living on the line instead of 1.5 million. It is reported that it is predicted that this will happen.
“Officials have long said they expect The Line to be built in stages and eventually cover 170 kilometers of desert along the coast. “We expect just 2.4 kilometers of the project to be completed by 2030,” Bloomberg claimed at the time.
Neom planners have largely ignored concerns that the project is too expensive and presents too many real-world challenges. MBS himself said in an interview with Discovery Channel in June that building Neom was “very doable.” Neom officials denied any difficulties with financing or designing a possible facility.
Wednesday, Neom announced It marks the debut of yet another district of the futuristic city: Jaumul, the largest international luxury community on the shores of the Gulf of Aqaba.
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Jaumul is said to be home to 6,000 people and include “500 marina apartments and nearly 700 luxury villas with waterfront access,” as well as world-class marine biology and oceanography research facilities.
