The soccer world has descended on Qatar, but there’s a sport that long predates FIFA’s spectacle—and it comes with its own set of history, complexity and rights issues.
ASH-SHAHANIYAH, QATAR – Just off the Dukhan Highway, roughly 24 miles from downtown Doha, there are two signs. One says, simply, Camel Village. And it is, well, exactly what it says, home to more than 20,000 camels and those who care for them.
The compounds stretch for miles along the desert, block after block of animal lodgings fashioned from brick and sand. There’s an under passage to access the other side of the highway, tall fences to keep the camels from wandering into traffic and dozens of plots of land run by competing groups.