Authorities in the United Arab Emirates were on Wednesday investigating some of the country’s worst labour unrest, which ended with the arrest of at least 30 workers allegedly involved in a riot at a labour camp in Sharjah on Tuesday.

Another outbreak of labour violence in the fast-growing UAE provides a stark warning that, in spite of government attempts to improve the lot of the hundreds of thousands of workers behind the construction boom, the dirham’s peg to the weakening dollar continues to eat into remittances. The authorities have made clear that violent protests will result in imprisonment and deportation.