Shia town of Awamiya is flattened by KSA bulldozers

Hundreds of Shia Muslims in Awamiya have been coerced by the regime of Al-Saud to leave their homes amid fighting and compulsory evictions, Taqrib News Agency (TNA) quoted middleeasteye as saying.

The Saudi government has been forcibly relocating residents of the restive city of Awamiya as clashes continue between soldiers and militant groups in the old city.

Hundreds of people have fled or been evacuated from Awamiya since the beginning of the current troubles which have killed at least seven people, including two police officers. According to al-Hayat newspaper, the government received requests from residents and farmers around Awamiya to help them flee the violence.

However, activists say that residents have been driven out of their homes and their properties seized by private development companies, primarily in and around the historic Almosara district.
An image sent to Middle East Eye by an Awamiya activist showed a requisition order pinned to a house in the district of al-Shweikah, about 6km south of Almosara.

The order is apparently issued by the Albarahim private property developer, but it also contains a stamp from the National Joint Counterterrorism Command (NJCC), a body formed in 2003 following attacks by al-Qaeda militants in the country.

The document shows a list of requirements that residents can bring to the local authorities in order to be relocated.

Awamiya has long been a flashpoint for protests by Saudi's Shia minority - the influential cleric Nimr al-Nimr, who was executed by the Saudi government in 2016, came from the town and demonstrations and unrest has been frequent.

Al-Hayat quoted Falah al-Khalidi, the governor of Qatif province, as saying contracts had been signed "for a number of furnished apartments in the city of Dammam to shelter those interested in leaving neighbourhoods near Almosara".

However, according to social media reports and activists, many of those displaced have yet to be rehoused.

"What I see from the first day there is a collective punishment... there is a plan for forced displacement," said Ameen Nemer, a Saudi activist originally from Awamiya.
"It doesn't matter where these people will end up."

"It has nothing to do with Almosara and development, it has to do with punishing this town for being vocal for calling for rights, calling for reforms since 2011," he stressed noting depopulation and destruction of the town was ultimately politically motivated, rather than driven by development or terrorism.

/SR