Al Wazarat

Haara al-Wazarat (حارة الوزارات), or Hayy al-Wazarat (حي الوزارات), colloquially known as Hara (حارة), is a low-income residential neighborhood in central Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, located west of al-Dhubbat and south of al-Sulaimaniyah in the sub-municipality of al-Malaz. It was developed in the 1970s and hosts some of the country's government buildings, most notably the offices of the Ministry of Defense and the Royal Saudi Navy. It is the heart of the city's Indian Hyderabadi Muslim community and has also been overwhelmingly inhabited by overseas workers from Pakistan and Bangladesh since the 1980s. Al Wazarat was developed in the 1970s as a housing project for government employees working for the ministries located on the Old Airport Road (now King Abdulaziz Road). As Saudis began abandoning the area in search of new localities by the 1980s, it was subsequently tenanted by skilled foreign workers from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh who began arriving in the country soon after 1973 energy crisis and subsequent oil boom.