$1.6 billion. Five tunnels. Forty-five minutes.
The Sharjah–Khor Fakkan road, inaugurated in 2019, pierced the Hajar with engineering on a scale the eastern UAE had never seen — and effectively ended Daftah's geographic isolation.
An 89 km road that rewrote the eastern map.
Inaugurated in 2019 at a cost of approximately AED 5.9 billion (USD 1.6 billion), the Sharjah–Khor Fakkan mountain road runs 89 kilometres through some of the most demanding terrain in the country. Five tunnels carry it through the Hajar. For drivers, the journey from Sharjah to Khor Fakkan dropped from over two hours to roughly forty-five minutes.
For the villages along the way, the change was deeper than time saved. Daftah — long a place travellers passed through on a slower, twistier road — found itself suddenly accessible from every direction. The tunnel that bears its name is one of five engineered passages through the mountains.
Before & after
Five passages through ophiolite rock.
Inside the mountains.