Situated in Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province, the small village of Awamiya has fallen prey to one of the most well-equipped military giants in the Gulf. This 400-year-old Muslim Shi’a district, with a population of only 30,000, has been under siege by Saudi forces since May and the government has turned the historic village into a war zone.
The town of Al-Awamiya in the eastern Qatif province of Saudi Arabia resembles scenes from a war zone.
While western mainstream media focuses on protests supported and funded by American NGOs in Venezuela, there is a true tragedy with irreversible consequences that is being promulgated by the regime of Saudi Arabia, it is an ethnic cleansing that the media refuses to cover. Far from being a secretive story, the regime is boasting of its crimes under the guise of ‘fighting terrorism’ and no western government has so much as batted an eyelid.
A screengrab appears to show bullet-ridden buildings demolished by bulldozers in Qatif.(@AngryQatifi)
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.
Unverified footage that circulated on social media showed thick smoke rising from a vehicle engulfed in flames (screengrab)
The Thursday evening blast was the latest incident in Qatif, which has seen criminal violence as well as protests among the Sunni-dominated kingdom’s Shia minority.
Police spotted the vehicle used “to carry out terrorist and criminal crimes” and then took “necessary action”, a ministry statement said, without detailing what tactics were used.
“As a result, it caught fire and exploded,” killing its two occupants.
Al-Akhbar | February 20, 2014
A Saudi court has jailed seven protesters for up to 20 years for joining a demonstration and chanting anti-government slogans in the kingdom’s Eastern Province, local media reported Thursday.
The Eastern Province, where Qatif is located, was the site of frequent Shia-led protests between February 2011 and August 2012.
