Initiated in 2017 by the crown prince and Prime Minister of the country Mohammed Ben Salmane, the project consists of several pharaonic achievements starting from the Red Sea and sinking into the arid and rugged lands of the northwest of the kingdom: commercial port built on the sea, seaside resort for the ultra-rich on an island, ski resort in mountains that almost never see snow and above all The Line, futuristic city and technological center more than 150 km long built like a huge wall of glass 500 meters high cutting through the desert.
But despite the inauguration last October of the luxury seaside island Sindalah, the first link in the project, Neom has since drastically lowered its sail and is trying to cover up the scandals.
Those responsible for the flagship project, The Line, who had planned to reach the 170 km built in 2023, have in fact announced that the completed length on this date would ultimately be… 2.4 km. Or a little more than 1%. The main reason is the astronomical cost of different sites, forcing designers to make choices by elimination.
“The Wild West”
Much worse, according to the Wall Street Journal, the immense construction site would have become a cut-throat for the nearly 100,000 Pakistani, Bangladeshi and Filipino workers employed there, housed under a blazing sun in camps built to standards. questionable sanitary facilities. The New York daily reported cases of “gang rapes, attempted murder and drug trafficking”, the drugs sold to workers helping them to keep up with the infernal pace imposed on them in the very severe Islamic monarchy.
The too rapid growth of infrastructure and the lack of controls would also cause numerous road accidents in what would have become “the Wild West”, with 8-year-old children seen behind the wheel of construction trucks.
Belgium