Reports suggest that 21,000 migrant workers have died while building Saudi Arabia’s ‘The Line’ since the idea was conceived seven years ago.
The structure is meant to be a ‘linear smart city’ and part of a larger project officially known as NEOM on Saudi Arabia’s North West coast bordering Egypt.
The city intends to house nine million people in a space of 34 square kilometres.
However, the project has been linked to the deaths of over 21,000 Indian, Bangladeshi, and Nepali workers since construction began in 2017 as reported in a documentary by ITV called Kingdom Uncovered: Inside Saudi Arabia.
This equates to just over eight deaths per day, every day, since construction began.
A further 100,000 disappearances have also been reported.
Sources spoke about working conditions, including long hours, wage theft and human rights abuses and claim they have been made to feel like “trapped slaves” and “beggars”.
Meanwhile the Arab kingdom also forcibly removed 20,000 indigenous people in order to make way for the construction of NEOM which, including ‘The Line’, is part of a new futuristic mega-city near the Red Sea.
The massive structure is expected to be 170km long, 500m high and 200m wide and cost $500 billion (£387 billion).
According to Nepal’s foreign employment board, 650 death of Nepalis remain unexplained as reported by Newsweek.
In the ITV documentary, one Nepali worker, Raju Bishwakarma called friends and family asking for help, before being found dead.
Allegedly his employer would only let him leave if he paid five months salary.
One WSJ article from last year uncovered many senior executives at NEOM facing allegations of corruption and racism.
Wayne Borg, an Australian executive, is one of these who allegedly said that South Asian laborers were “f**king morons,” which “is why white people are at the top of the pecking order.”
Multiple architecture firms have pulled out of the project following human rights abuses coming to light.
