Documentary alleges 21,000 workers have died working on Saudi Vision 2030, which includes The Line

MORE than 21,000 Indian, Bangladeshi, and Nepalese workers are alleged to have died in Saudi Arabia since 2017 working on the country’s Saudi Vision 2030.

The claim emerged in a new documentary Kingdom Uncovered: Inside Saudi Arabia, produced and aired by UK broadcaster ITV.

The Saudi Vision 2030 plan includes the construction of several megaprojects, most notably on the Red Sea and at NEOM, where work is progressing on The Line – a 500-metre tall mirrored linear city that will now reportedly stretch for around 2.4-kilometres across the desert.

The multi-year strategy is principally focused on diversifying Saudi Arabia’s economy and is being catalysed by the Public Investment Fund (PIF), a state-owned sovereign wealth fund.

In the ITV documentary, workers testified about 16-hour work days and poor working conditions at The Line, which reportedly has a 140,000-strong migrant workforce.

Responding in a statement, first reported by the Saudi Gazette, the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health in Saudi Arabia strongly refuted the claims and confirmed that the country’s work-related fatality rate stands at 1.12 per 100,000 workers, placing the Kingdom among countries with the lowest rates of work-related deaths globally.

Above: The Line is an extraordinarily ambitious linear city that's currently under construction in Saudi Arabia. Image: NEOM. Below: Work on the vast cube-shaped Mukaab recently started in Riyadh. Image: New Murabba Development Company. 

In a separate statement, NEOM said: “We are assessing the claims made in this programme, and where required, will take appropriate action. We require all contractors and subcontractors to comply with NEOM’s Code of Conduct, based on the laws of Saudi Arabia and the policies of the International Labour Organisation, and they are subject to frequent inspections of their workers' living and working conditions.”

The ITV documentary follows a report by BBC News in May 2024 that Saudi Arabian authorities had permitted the use of "lethal force" to clear villages in the path of The Line.

Colonel Rabih Alenezi, an exiled former Saudi intelligence officer now living in the UK, told BBC News that he was ordered to evict villagers from a tribe in the region and cleared to use lethal force against anyone who "continued to resist". The BBC was unable to independently verify Colonel Rabih Alenezi's comments.

Such reports have put many of the world-leading architectural, engineering and consultancy practices engaged on the country’s projects under scrutiny. This week Architect’s Journal reached-out to Heatherwick Studio, Populous, Foster + Partners and Zaha Hadid Architects for comment on the claims made in the ITV documentary, but none of the organisations responded.

Above: This image of construction progress on The Line was shown in a NEOM promotional video in April 2024. Image: NEOM.

Jeddah Tower restart

Elsewhere, The B1M recently broke exclusive news about the construction timeline for Jeddah Tower – a distinctly separate, non-NEOM project that's being led by a private developer. It appears the tower is due to restart early in 2025 and complete in 2028.

If completed, the skyscraper will stand at least 1-kilometre tall and overtake Dubai’s 828-metre Burj Khalifa to become the world’s tallest building.

Construction originally began back in 2013 but was paused twice for extended periods: once following Saudi Arabia’s anti-corruption purge of 2017 and again at the start of the pandemic. 

The project had sat largely dormant since early 2020 with a circa 300-metre tall stump constructed – though that in itself would already classify as a “supertall” skyscraper.

Above: Construction works on the 1-kilometre Jeddah Tower had been stalled since 2020.