Across Saudi Arabia, large-scale forced evictions and mass demolitions have become a defining feature of the Kingdom’s urban redevelopment agenda. Framed by authorities as necessary modernization under Vision 2030, these projects have displaced hundreds of thousands of residents from working-class neighbourhoods labelled as ‘underdeveloped’. Behind this narrative of progress lies a pattern of coercive displacement, carried out without due process, marked by discrimination and exclusion, with long-term consequences for low-income residents and migrant communities.
Saudi Arabia’s ongoing demolition and eviction campaign has affected more than half a million people across over 60 neighbourhoods, particularly in major urban centres such as Jeddah. Entire residential areas have been cleared to make space for luxury real estate developments, commercial districts, and flagship megaprojects. While authorities justify these interventions as crime-reduction and urban improvement measures, the process is marked by devastating effects and serious human rights violations.
Residents in targeted areas have consistently reported that Saudi authorities failed to engage in genuine consultation prior to demolitions, provided little or no advance notice, and proceeded without clearly announcing compensation mechanisms in advance. In many cases, compensation was either delayed or denied entirely. The explicit exclusion of foreign nationals from compensation schemes has left migrant workers without any housing, remedy, or legal recourse, providing clear evidence of systematic discrimination. For these residents, displacement has resulted in immediate precarity, homelessness, and in some cases forced departure from the country. Families lose their homes, but also access to employment, education, and essential services.
Rather than acknowledging these harms, state-aligned media outlets have promoted stigmatizing narratives portraying affected neighbourhoods as ‘lawless slums’ populated by undocumented migrants and associated with crime and disease. This framing has served to legitimize demolitions while obscuring the structural inequalities that produced inadequate housing in the first place. By casting displaced residents as security threats, Saudi authorities shift responsibility away from the state toward those most vulnerable to displacement, effectively insulating redevelopment policies from scrutiny and evading all accountability.
Land confiscation and forcible displacement have long been tools of Saudi development policy, particularly in areas earmarked for high-value investment. The most notorious example remains the forced displacement of thousands of members of the Huwaitat tribe to clear land for the NEOM megacity project. Reports documented the use of intimidation, arbitrary arrests, and lethal force to suppress popular resistance, underscoring a coercive development model in which modernization is pursued through repression. The cost becomes the loss of homes, dignity, and security. In this context, displacement becomes a structural tool of governance that prioritizes investment over housing security and social protection.
Urban redevelopment in Saudi Arabia proceeds without effective safeguards or accountability mechanisms. Forced evictions carried out without consultation, adequate notice or compensation violate core international human rights standards, including the right to adequate housing, protection against eviction, non-discrimination protected under the Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. The cumulative effect of these policies is the normalization of displacement as a governance tool.
Saudi authorities must immediately halt forced evictions conducted without due process and ensure all residents, regardless of nationality, are afforded adequate notice, consultation, fair compensation and alternative housing. Independent monitoring of redevelopment projects must be permitted, and victims of unlawful evictions must have access to effective remedies. International partners and investors should press Saudi Arabia to align its development agenda with human rights standards, ensuring that economic transformation does not continue to come at the expense of marginalized communities.
