Like two dozen other boys being sheltered at a safe house in a military base in the United Arab Emirates, Shakheel is a victim of the wealthy rulers’ national obsession: camel racing.

As many as 5,000 children, some as young as two, have been kidnapped or bought from their parents in the Indian sub-continent and Africa as part of a quest by camel trainers to gain the edge over their racing rivals.

Last week, as the racing season drew to a close with two high-profile races attended by the Emirates’ elite, the sheikhs promised to end a shameful modern-day slave trade that is proving an embarrassment for their small, oil-rich federation.

Speaking haltingly in his native Urdu, Shakheel described the wretchedness of life in an ousbah, a simple desert settlement where the boys live as prisoners with the camels and their trainers.

“They used to wake us at two or three in the morning. If we didn’t get up or they thought we were lazy they would beat us with sticks,” he said. “We had to clean up the camel dung with our hands.”

The boys were given brackish water and fed little more than bread or biscuits to keep their weight down. Any considered to have become too heavy would have weights tied to their backs and be made to run under the desert sun.

Serial offenders would be hung by their wrists from chains. Many claim that they were sexually abused by the trainers.

Race days were the worst. As the camels thundered around the track at up to 40mph, riders were often knocked to the ground and trampled underfoot.

Another boy, Zulfiqar, 10, said he had seen several riders break their arms or necks or die from their injuries. When the choice is between tending a thoroughbred camel worth hundreds of thousands of pounds or a boy bought for a few thousand, the animals get priority. “They always look after the camels first,” he said.

The children owe their presence in the safe house to Ansar Burney, a Pakistani human rights lawyer. Burney, 48, has spent the past 16 years fighting the child-smuggling business — part of a broader trade that provides the wealthy of the Gulf with maids for their homes and young girls for sex.

The breakthrough came late last year after he had spent two weeks filming life in the ousbahs with a hidden camera for a documentary shown on American television. Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al Nahyan, the deputy crown prince of Abu Dhabi, saw the film and gave him accommodation and the money to run it.

“The sheikh said that he watched the film with his children and they asked him how such dirty things could be allowed to happen in their country,” Burney said.

Earlier this month the UAE authorities announced that from March 31 it will be illegal for anyone under 16 or weighing under seven stone to race.

However, western human rights groups which have monitored the trade, such as Anti-Slavery International, based in London, are sceptical about the ban. They point out that similar measures were also introduced in 2002.

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