Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) has recently ordered the demolition of the entire city of Jeddah including hospitals, schools, and mosques, as soon as possible as part of his modernisation plan, well-informed sources revealed.
So far, 70,000 homes and 200 service buildings have been demolished. However, MBS responded aggressively to the reports and threatened officials to implement his orders immediately.
As part of his alleged modernisation plan, MBS continues to target Jeddah and to move all governmental institutions from Jeddah to other cities.
Most of its southern districts and much of its centre have gone. Herds of mechanical diggers paw at the remnants of mosques, schools, factories and blocks of flats
The sources said that MBS’s is targeting Jeddah city over its residents’ challenge to his reform plan.
Before the founding king, Abdel Aziz bin Saud, conquered the whole country only a century ago, Jeddah was the grand seaside capital of the rival kingdom of Hijaz, while Riyadh, homestead of the Al Saud, was a mud hamlet.
Jeddah’s residents have earlier called their crown prince and de facto ruler, the Bulldozer.
A project costing $45bn to overhaul Jeddah was unveiled 13 years ago, but never materialised. This time befuddled residents have seen plans only for the waterfront and for converting an obsolete desalination plant.
The redevelopment – which is officially budgeted at $20bn (£15bn) – is portrayed not just as an upgrading and modernisation of these neighbourhoods, but a restoration of their cultural and historical value in a port city that’s served as a trading post between East and West for thousands of years – as well as the entry point for countless Muslim pilgrims on their way to Mecca for Hajj each year.
The plans include an opera house, an oceanarium, a sports stadium, a marina and the creation of a large public beach.
Hotels will also be built, providing more than 2,700 hotel rooms, and modern residential areas, including 17,000 housing units.
For homeless Saudis, the prince’s masterplan, Vision 2030, augurs destruction more than reconstruction.
The mass demolition campaign has triggered a growing anger among Saudis who went into social media to express their total rejection and condemnation to the ongoing demolition policy, especially that no one of them has received any compensation till today.
Over the past years, MBS demolished entire areas of cities. In early 2020, the authorities began evacuating the Khirba area of Tabuk, northwest of the Kingdom, as part of NEOM project.
The mass destruction led to the killing of the citizen Abdul Rahim al-Huwaiti, who refused to leave his grandfathers’ house in profit of NEOM project.
Three years earlier, the Saudi authorities removed the historic Al-Masoura neighborhood in the Al-Awamiya district of the Shiite-majority Qatif governorate.
