Saudi authorities have sanctioned the use of lethal force to clear land for the new futuristic city of NEOM, a flagship project of the kingdom’s Crown Prince, a new report reveals.
Constructed by multiple Western companies, Neom is the biggest project undertaken by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman as he plans to diversify the Saudi Arabian economy that has been heavily reliant on oil.
Colonel Rabih Alenezi disclosed that he was instructed to remove villagers from a tribe in the Gulf state to clear the area for The Line, a component of the Neom eco-project.
Subsequently, one of them was shot and killed for protesting against eviction, he told the British broadcaster BBC in an intervier.
Colonel Alenezi, now in exile in the United Kingdom, revealed that the clearance directive he received targeted al-Khuraybah, located 4.5 kilometers south of The Line. The affected villages were predominantly inhabited by the Huwaitat tribe, longstanding residents of the Tabuk region in the country’s northwest.
Colonel Alenezi further disclosed that the April 2020 order characterised the Huwaitat as “many rebels” and sanctioned the use of lethal force against those who resisted eviction. Although he avoided participating in the mission due to fabricated medical reasons, it proceeded nonetheless.
“[Neom] is the centrepiece of Mohamed Bin Salman’s ideas. That’s why he was so brutal in dealing with the Huwaitat,” he stated.
UK-based human rights group ALQST estimated that the project has led to the forced relocation of over 6,000 people.
According to the UN and ALQST, at least 47 other villagers were detained for resisting evictions. Many of them faced prosecution on terror-related charges. Presently, 40 individuals remain in detention, with five of them sentenced to death, as per ALQST.
Saudi tribal activist ‘shot dead’
In 2020, a Saudi tribal activist, Abdul Rahim al-Huwaiti, was purportedly killed by the country’s security forces in the northwest region of the kingdom. He had refused to vacate his home, which was marked for demolition to make space for the construction of a megacity project in the area.
Abdul Rahim al-Huwaiti — belonging to the large Howeitat tribe spanning southwest Jordan, Sinai, and northwestern Saudi Arabia — was allegedly shot dead by Saudi security personnel in Al-Khuraybah, situated more than 1400 kilometers northwest of the capital Riyadh, close to the Jordanian-Saudi-Israeli border intersection.
As per the BBC report, al-Huwaiti declined to permit a land registry committee to assess the value of his property. Subsequently, Saudi authorities shot him dead during the clearance operation the following day. Prior to this incident, he had shared several videos on social media protesting against the evictions.
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