BY the time Babu passed his fourth birthday his mother had died of rabies and his father of asthma.

BY the time Babu passed his fourth birthday his mother had died of rabies and his father of asthma.

He grew up alone on the streets; his bed a patch of concrete next to Bangladesh’s national football stadium.

His aspiration was to become a footballer but he never made it inside the stadium gates. He didn’t even own a football.

Babu had even less chance of fulfilling his second ambition -- to be a pilot.

Now the boy -- who featured on the front cover of The Herald’s Saturday magazine in January, 2010 -- is the latest victim of a life on the streets after being killed in a road accident.

The youngster was photographed squatting outside the stadium near where he and his friends kept watch over each other, to try to avoid the inevitable police beatings and the gangs that steal children.

The feature was run as a fundraising campaign with Concern Worldwide, and thanks to the generosity of readers it raised more than £10,000.

Babu told us: “I would like a roof.” He never got that. The accident killed him instantly and the Concern staff had to identify him at the morgue.

Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh and the world’s most densely populated city, has between 20,000 and 50,000 permanent pavement dwellers. Most of these men, women and children are environmental refugees who have fled flooding in outlying parts of the country.

It is one of the world’s most polluted cities and deaths from respiratory disease and road accidents are common on the street. The smog is so thick it blocks out the sun, and every road is clogged with rickshaws, buses and cars.

Just months before we met, Babu had been kidnapped in the middle of the night and taken across the city by a man he had never seen before.

Locked in a room for three days with little food or water, he was then sold for 4000 taka, about £35.

“He was selling me to another person when I started screaming and crying and a policeman came and caught him,” he told us.

“I was so very afraid. We can’t all sleep at once in case the gangs try to steal someone.”

Unicef, the United Nations Children’s Fund, estimates that 400 women and children fall victim to trafficking in Bangladesh each month.

Most are between the ages of 12 and 16 and are forced to work in the sex industry. Some become domestic slaves, and boys are often taken to the Middle East and forced to be camel jockeys.

The only respite from the noise and filth was from 9am to 5pm, when Babu could access one of Concern Worldwide’s nine day-centres across the city.

The centres support more than 1000 pavement dwellers each day, offering a place for them to rest, wash and cook. Children under five are given nursery education and lunch, allowing their parents to work.

They also run savings schemes and encourage young people into vocational training courses to offer them an escape from the streets. The project is called Amrao Manush, meaning “we are people too” in Bengali, a name de-vised by the pavement dwellers.

Parents try to protect their children as well as they can. Mothers tie their toddlers to their bodies with their saris -- little deterrent to the organised criminal gangs, known as mustans. One woman used a padlock and chain. Babu had no-one to tie himself to.

AKM Musha, Concern’s country director said: “This is very very sad and unacceptable but this is the harsh reality for the children living on the street in Dhaka City.”