Sinister secret behind £400 billion megacity The Line

Saudi Arabia is spending hundreds of billions of pounds making a futuristic city like nothing the world has ever seen before. But with that comes a dark and murky secret.

Known as The Line, the Saudi project - created by Neom - is valued as high as $1 trillion (£400 billion).

First announced in 2021, the project looks to build a 105-mile long city running across the desert. Constructed by 2030, it'll be home to nine million people living and working on the eco-project.

There will be no cars on The Line with the city stretching just 200 metres wide, with it powered by renewable energy as part of the Saudi Arabian government's plans to move the country's economy away from oil.

It'll be a hefty 106 miles long, though, so good luck if you need to get from one end to the other in a rush. In reality, it wont be this long for a very long time (if ever) with just 1.5 miles set to be built by 2030.

But with this utopian dream comes a dash of hard-hitting reality that's more like something from a dystopian TV show.

One former Saudi Arabian security service official has revealed what it is really like on the ground, especially for those who are impacted by the construction of The Line.

CGI of the end of The Line. (Neom)

The security official, Col Rabih Alenezi, has fled to London where he alleges he was ordered to 'kill locals' in a village occupied by the Huwaitat tribe if they refused to relocate in order for The Line to be built.

This was as he was ordered to evict people belonging to a rural tribe with the village that they lived in needing to be flattened for The Line.

Speaking to the BBC, Alenezi said an order was given to him that said 'whoever continues to resist [eviction] should be killed, so it licensed the use of lethal force against whoever stayed in their home'.

Construction under way on The Line. (Neom)

Alenezi said: "Neom is the centrepiece of Mohamed Bin Salman's ideas. That's why he was so brutal in dealing with the Huwaitat."

On the mission in question one Saudi man, Abdul Rahim al-Huwaiti, was shot dead a day after he refused the land registry committee to value his house.

He had been vocal across social media on what was happening to those who were being forced to move.

Images shared by the BBC show a village known as Sharma before and after enforcement was undertaken, with buildings destroyed and the land mostly cleared apart from infrastructure such as roads.

The Line was initially set to be bigger than four countries: Vatican City, Monaco, Nauru and Tuvalu. (Neom)

Mohammed bin Salman launched The Line plan with aims of creating 460,000 jobs and adding an estimated $48 billion to the country's economy.

Estimates put the end cost for The Line as high as $2 trillion given the work that is needed to be done.

Neom has been contacted for comment.