EXCLUSIVE: Rat kids of Rio who earn £1 a day sifting through the raw sewage in bay hosting Olympic sailing in just EIGHT WEEKS

It's nicknamed Rio's 'latrine', where six million people's waste ends up in a stinking, rubbish-laden stagnant mass of water.

But as the South American city prepares to host the Olympic Games, Guanabara Bay, venue for this year's sailing competitions is under intense scrutiny.

Sailors in test events have already collided with floating debris and many others falling ill with vomiting and rashes as Rio faces calls to clean up the bay, and protect athletes from potentially dangerous hazards.

But it's not just household rubbish: human waste, blood-filled syringes, and even dead bodies have been discovered amongst the floating mass.

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Latrine: This is the edge of Guanabara Bay, which will host the sailing competitions during the Rio Olympics in just two months time

Polluted: Campaigners are calling for more to do be done to clean it up before the games start - but there are some who don't want that

Lifeline: People from the two favelas on the edge of the bay make a living picking through the rubbish - and what they say they have found will send a chill down any athlete or spectator's spine

Spectacular: The bay looks amazing from a distance, overlooked by the statue of Christ the Redeemer and the Sugar Loaf mountain

Yet not everyone in Rio wants to see Guanabara free from rubbish.

Along the edges of the 17-mile-wide bay, much of which is bordered by sprawling favela slums, many desperately poor families depend on the murky, trash-ridden waters to eke out a living.

Using makeshift wooden boats to reach floating debris, an army of mostly young boys fish out whatever they can find in the stinking black expanse which they could sell to recyclers, and help their families put food on the table.

While Olympics organisers can only speculate on what may lurk underneath the murky waters of the Guanabara, the bay's litter boys - who every day sort through the river's tonnes of debris - have a much better idea.

And what they claim to have pulled out of the waters will shock sailing crews preparing to compete here in just two months' time.

MailOnline visited the slum community of Timbau in the Maré complex of favelas in northern Rio, whose makeshift brick houses back on to the bay, around seven miles from where the Olympic sailing events will be held.

It is also where the Cunha canal, one of 55 rivers which flow into the bay, meets the Guanabara's waters.

Almost all of the rivers have been declared 'dead' by scientists, and Cunha is no exception. It's black, tar-like waters spew out untreated sewage, fly-tipped trash and industrial waste, along with the stomach-churning stench of raw human waste and decomposition.

Before reaching the bay, the Cunha canal passes through some of Rio's poorest and most populated shanty towns, most of which have no rubbish collection or basic sanitation.

Poison: The 'litter boys' who pick rubbish on the bay claim to have found blood-filled syringes and even dead bodies in the water

Dirt: Fifty-five rivers flow into the expansive bay, including the Cunha canal, which passes through some of Rio's poorest and most populated shanty towns, most of which have no rubbish collection or basic sanitation

Fearless: Yet surprisingly they still swim in the water. Sailors who have taken part in test events, however, have reported coming up in rashes, and say they have been left vomiting. Others have said they collided with the rubbish floating on top of the bay

Their hundreds of thousands of inhabitants use the river to dump all their household waste.

Yet here, we found young boys excitedly wading, rowing - and even swimming - into the putrid waters to collect plastic bags and bottles, aluminium cans, copper wires, and any other items which could later be sold or recycled.

The mouth of the river accumulates so much waste that unwanted trash pulled out of it has created a huge rubbish tip on the edge of the bay, where old sofas, broken pieces of wood and plastics reveal just some of the hidden perils awaiting Olympic sailors come August.

The bayside is patrolled by drug gangsters armed with submachine guns, and on the day we visited even a junk yard, set up by a local man, had been comandeered by the gang and the man expelled from the area - a measure of how much the Guanabara junk trade is valued in these communities.

The gangsters still allow young favela boys, collecting small amounts of rubbish to provide for their families, to continue to ply their trade.

Among those in the Timbau favela are 11-year-old Jonas and 13-year-old Leleco, who spend most of their day dredging what they can from the bay.

Both children lost their fathers, involved in the local drugs trade, after they were shot dead in confrontations with police. Now, according to the boys, they are the only 'men' in their homes and feel responsible for helping their mothers make ends meet.

Jonas, whose mother is retired after suffering a stroke, and whose older sister is now married, said: 'Most of my friends went to the drugs gangs to make money, but I didn't want to. So the only way is to collect rubbish from the bay.

'If we spend four days collecting plastic bottles we can get enough to sell them for 20 reals (£4). Sometimes we find other things in the water and find someone who wants to buy it.

'I could earn more running errands for the drugs gang but it's more dangerous and I don't want my mum to lose me like she did my dad.'

Determined: But they won't stop collecting rubbish. The boys MailOnline spoke to said they could earn a pound a day from collecting the plastic bottles they find in the bay - money which they then give to their mothers, who are struggling to provide for them

Trapped: But they admit they sometimes skip school in order to work at the bay, which means they are missing out on their education

Criminals: The drug gangs allow the boys to collect the rubbish, which the boys prefer to do rather than get involved in crime

Leleco's mother works cleaning the house in the favela, earning around £120 a month. Although he has an older brother, he is also married and lives in another part of the city.

He said: 'I saw them killing my dad. I was walking home from school and saw the policeman shoot him, and my dad falling to the ground.

'It was the worst day of my life. I still shake when I see a policeman.

'My dad made a lot of money in the drugs gangs, and now my mum struggles to pay the bills. I have to help her.'

The boys said they go to school in the mornings, but miss classes if there is a lot of rubbish to retrieve from the bay.

Leleco, who wants to be a footballer when he grows up, said: 'On some days the river is full of plastic bottles, so we come here early and stay all day. Twice a month the tide gets really high so it brings in lots more rubbish from the sides of the river, that's when we work the hardest.

'We give the money to our mums. We also use it to buy pencils for school, and kites to play with.'

But they said they have made some grim finds as they have delved into the murky waters.

'Dead dogs, pigs, horses,' said Jonas. 'And sometimes dead people. I once found half the body of a woman, she'd been cut in two. And we've found dead babies too, fetuses which had been aborted and flushed away or thrown in the river.'

Perhaps more worryingly for international sailing crews preparing for the Games, the boys claim they have found hospital waste marked for incineration, indicating that hospitals are illegally dumping potentially deadly substances in the waters.

Jonas said: 'There are lots of medicine bottles, and bandages. We once found a sealed plastic bag with lots of syringes which were full of blood.'

Hazardous: The boys also claim they have found hospital waste marked for incineration, indicating hospitals are illegally dumping potentially deadly substances in the water, as well as unwanted industrial waste, like bags containing unwanted meat and chicken parts

Fortune: On a good day, however, they can find a football - which they can sell for five reals (£1), or copper wire, earning them 50 reals

Treasure: The boys once found a bag of coins, which turned out to be worth 300 reals. It was their happiest day

The boys claimed they also find industrial waste, including bags containing unwanted meat and chicken parts, suggesting that factories are also illegally dumping trash in the rivers that flow into Rio's famous bay.

Other items the youngsters have pulled out of the waters have proved more lucrative.

Leleco remembered: 'Once we were out on a boat in the bay and I fished out a bag full of 25 centavo coins. We cointed them and they came to 300 reals (about £60).

'We split the money in three, 100 for me, Jonas and the man who owned the boat. I've never gone home feeling so happy than that day.'

Jonas added: 'Sometimes we come across footballs, and we can sell those for 5 reals each. Once we found an old TV and when we pulled it in it was still working! We also found a surfboard which was still in one piece - we sold that for 25 reals (£5).

'And when we're lucky we find wires with copper inside. We once found a whole roll of copper wires and sold the copper for 50 reals (£10).'

Astonishingly the boys, along with other favela children, happily swim in the foul water, and even have fun at the end of the day jumping and diving into the bay.

The poisoned waters nearly took the life of Leleco last year when the young boy contracted leptospirosis, a bacteria transmitted through rat urine which causes muscle pains, fever and bleeding of the lungs.

'I had a cut on my foot and they said it went into me when I was in the water,' he said.

'I was really weak, I was vomiting with a high fever. I stayed in hospital for ten days. I was bleeding inside.'

Another peril are the water snakes which have adapted and survived the pollution. 

'When we see them, we kill them. I'm not afraid of them,' said Jonas.

The boys' experiences will further worry Olympic sailing teams, which have already expressed concern that competitors could collide with debris or be exposed to dangerous viruses and bacteria during the competition.

In one test race, the Brazilian sailor Thomas Low-Beer capsized after his boat slammed into what he believed was a sofa, while other competitors have got their rudders stuck in plastic bags.

Meanwhile, other sailors have told how they fell ill during test events, including Switzerland's Yannick Baulic, who got sick with fever and diarrhea after training for two weeks in the water, and British sailor Alain Sign, who fell ill after his boat capsized in the bay.

Danish Olympic sailor Allan Norregaard described the bay as 'the most polluted place I've ever been. I don't know what's in the water, but it's definitely not healthy.'

But despite promises from Brazil's government that the bay would be cleaned up in time for the Olympics, with seven new sewage plants, only one was actually opened and Rio state officials have acknowleged that a real clean-up of Guanabara will take at least 20 years.

Meanwhile, the city is still pouring at least of its untreated sewage into its surrounding waters, most of which goes into Guanabara.

Danger: Last year, one of the boys contracted leptospirosis, a bacteria transmitted through rat urine which causes muscle pains, fever and bleeding of the lungs. He was in hospital for 10 days, bleeding internally

Promises: Rio's Olympic organisers insist there will be no incidents during the sailing events, and will employ helicopters and boats to spot and remove debris from the waters, as well as 17 so-called 'eco-barriers' across rivers preventing trash from flowing into the bay

Rio's Olympic organisers insist there will be no incidents during the sailing events, and will employ helicopters and boats to spot and remove debris from the waters, as well as 17 so-called 'eco-barriers' across rivers preventing trash from flowing into the bay.

But while the dire state of the bay has become one of the most embarrassing sticking points for Rio, Jonas and Leleco hope that, once the Games are over, the rubbish business can continue as normal.

Jonas said: 'It's my livelihood. Without it I don't know what I would do to earn money. If Rio wants to make clean up the bay, they have to make life better for us, too.'