JEDDAH: Saudi doctor still had 15 years left on the loan he used to build his family’s “dream” home Jeddah When the bulldozer threw him to the ground, his life turned into “hell”.
The operation was part of a $20 billion evacuation and construction project that stands to displace half a million people in Saudi Arabia’s second city – and has prompted a rare expression of public anger in the kingdom.
Officials tout the development as the Crown’s latest ambitious project Prince Mohammed bin Salman, which will replace the “slums” with facilities such as a stadium, an ocean and an opera house.
Yet in coastal Jeddah, where crushed concrete and bent metal now litter the affected streets, residents have described official descriptions of their lost neighborhoods as undesirable hotbeds of drugs and crime.
Instead they accuse the government of destroying vibrant, diverse working-class districts that once burned Jeddah’s reputation as the most open destination in the deeply conservative country.
“We have become strangers in our own city. We feel anguish and bitterness,” said the doctor, who is now renting housing while paying $400 a month on his personal loan, which is set against the land. The safe on which the house was built.
The prospects for renegotiating the loan or claiming compensation are unclear – fearing retaliation from the authorities, who did not want to be identified like the other residents in this story.
Paused for the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, demolition is expected to pick up again in May. Jeddah officials did not respond to AFP’s request for comment about the project.
Often referred to as the “Gateway to Mecca”, Islam’s holiest city, Jeddah is a vibrant tourist hub of beachfront restaurants and galleries, having hosted a major film festival in the past months and a Formula A Grand Prix.
Before Prince Mohammed launched a social liberalization campaign to soften his country’s extremist image, the city on the Red Sea coast enjoyed a level of freedom that helped give rise to its motto: “Jeddah Gair”. , or “Jeddah is different”.
But the demolition risks fueling anti-government sentiment in the more than 30 neighborhoods targeted, many of which contained a mix of foreigners from Saudi and other Arab countries and Asia,
ALQST for Human Rights, an NGO, said the evicted residents had been living in the homes for 60 years.
It said some were kicked out when power and water were cut or were threatened with prison for disobeying an eviction order.
south of the city Galil The neighborhood, which first saw demolition last October, a resident who gave his name Fahd The security forces have confiscated mobile phones to prevent the footage from coming out, it said.
“We were thrown out of our homes overnight and without warning,” he told AFP.
However, by the beginning of this year, the news was being widely circulated, with the hashtag “#hadad_jeddah”, or “Jeddah_demolition” trending in Arabic on Twitter.
Ali al-Ahmad, a Saudi activist and scholar at the Gulf Affairs Institute in Washington, has led online efforts to make the details of the demolition public.
“It is not acceptable to demolish the houses of citizens without their consent and shift them to a new place before paying compensation at an adequate cost,” he said.
During a recent tour of a neighborhood affected by demolition, an AFP reporter saw several blocks where most of the buildings were leveled.
Many of them are still standing, with officers writing a single word in red: “evacuate”.
A sign instructed residents to leave with their belongings, and advised them to upload documents to a government website to apply for compensation.
The Saudi government has promised compensation to the families, and announced in February that it would complete 5,000 replacement housing units by the end of the year.
But residents interviewed by AFP, including those who were quickly evicted, said they had received nothing so far and had no clear way of estimating the value of their destroyed homes.
Fahd said, “Months have passed and I have not received my house compensation. I was struggling to pay my rent from a landlord to a tenant.”
The ALQST survey also found that some residents had not received clear information about claiming compensation, or were even told that it was available.
Officials defended the project, saying it would modernize the city with 17,000 new residential units while maintaining its character.
And they continue to denigrate the affected areas, with the mayor of Jeddah saying in a televised interview that the demolition hit places that were “crime dens”.
Such descriptions upset men such as Turkey of a Saudi origin from Jeddah, who had been living in the house built by his grandfather, where he himself grew up and where, before the bulldozers and rubble shells arrived, he spent his life. Had planned to raise children.
Turkey went back to see what happened to the property, and the scene left him in tears.
“The sound of breaking was everywhere,” he said. “With debris everywhere, it felt like doomsday.”
The operation was part of a $20 billion evacuation and construction project that stands to displace half a million people in Saudi Arabia’s second city – and has prompted a rare expression of public anger in the kingdom.
Officials tout the development as the Crown’s latest ambitious project Prince Mohammed bin Salman, which will replace the “slums” with facilities such as a stadium, an ocean and an opera house.
Yet in coastal Jeddah, where crushed concrete and bent metal now litter the affected streets, residents have described official descriptions of their lost neighborhoods as undesirable hotbeds of drugs and crime.
Instead they accuse the government of destroying vibrant, diverse working-class districts that once burned Jeddah’s reputation as the most open destination in the deeply conservative country.
“We have become strangers in our own city. We feel anguish and bitterness,” said the doctor, who is now renting housing while paying $400 a month on his personal loan, which is set against the land. The safe on which the house was built.
The prospects for renegotiating the loan or claiming compensation are unclear – fearing retaliation from the authorities, who did not want to be identified like the other residents in this story.
Paused for the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, demolition is expected to pick up again in May. Jeddah officials did not respond to AFP’s request for comment about the project.
Often referred to as the “Gateway to Mecca”, Islam’s holiest city, Jeddah is a vibrant tourist hub of beachfront restaurants and galleries, having hosted a major film festival in the past months and a Formula A Grand Prix.
Before Prince Mohammed launched a social liberalization campaign to soften his country’s extremist image, the city on the Red Sea coast enjoyed a level of freedom that helped give rise to its motto: “Jeddah Gair”. , or “Jeddah is different”.
But the demolition risks fueling anti-government sentiment in the more than 30 neighborhoods targeted, many of which contained a mix of foreigners from Saudi and other Arab countries and Asia,
ALQST for Human Rights, an NGO, said the evicted residents had been living in the homes for 60 years.
It said some were kicked out when power and water were cut or were threatened with prison for disobeying an eviction order.
south of the city Galil The neighborhood, which first saw demolition last October, a resident who gave his name Fahd The security forces have confiscated mobile phones to prevent the footage from coming out, it said.
“We were thrown out of our homes overnight and without warning,” he told AFP.
However, by the beginning of this year, the news was being widely circulated, with the hashtag “#hadad_jeddah”, or “Jeddah_demolition” trending in Arabic on Twitter.
Ali al-Ahmad, a Saudi activist and scholar at the Gulf Affairs Institute in Washington, has led online efforts to make the details of the demolition public.
“It is not acceptable to demolish the houses of citizens without their consent and shift them to a new place before paying compensation at an adequate cost,” he said.
During a recent tour of a neighborhood affected by demolition, an AFP reporter saw several blocks where most of the buildings were leveled.
Many of them are still standing, with officers writing a single word in red: “evacuate”.
A sign instructed residents to leave with their belongings, and advised them to upload documents to a government website to apply for compensation.
The Saudi government has promised compensation to the families, and announced in February that it would complete 5,000 replacement housing units by the end of the year.
But residents interviewed by AFP, including those who were quickly evicted, said they had received nothing so far and had no clear way of estimating the value of their destroyed homes.
Fahd said, “Months have passed and I have not received my house compensation. I was struggling to pay my rent from a landlord to a tenant.”
The ALQST survey also found that some residents had not received clear information about claiming compensation, or were even told that it was available.
Officials defended the project, saying it would modernize the city with 17,000 new residential units while maintaining its character.
And they continue to denigrate the affected areas, with the mayor of Jeddah saying in a televised interview that the demolition hit places that were “crime dens”.
Such descriptions upset men such as Turkey of a Saudi origin from Jeddah, who had been living in the house built by his grandfather, where he himself grew up and where, before the bulldozers and rubble shells arrived, he spent his life. Had planned to raise children.
Turkey went back to see what happened to the property, and the scene left him in tears.
“The sound of breaking was everywhere,” he said. “With debris everywhere, it felt like doomsday.”