Smiles today; tears tomorrow!

A month ago, these men, working on a remote oilfield in Northern Africa, were caught up in a civil war which saw them captured and held prisoner by the rebels.

Told they were being held to ransom - the money raised would help finance the rebels' war with the government - there were held in close confinement and spent an anxious time waiting to see if their oil company would pay for their release.

They have just been told by the rebels that money has been paid for their release and that tomorrow, a convoy of trucks will move them out of the battle zone.

Here we see the jubilant workers smiling and rejoicing at the news.

What they don't know is that the government and the oil company have refused to deal with the rebels as a matter of principle or to  pay the ransom for their release.

Desperate for money to fund their insurgency, the rebels have now sold the workers into slavery.

Tomorrow, as the workers eagerly clamber aboard the trucks, instead of heading north to the Mediterranean and freedom,  the convoy will turn south and deliver them to the salt mines at Taoudenni, 650 kilometres north of Timbuktu where they will spend time under the whip manually hacking out 200 pound slabs of salt from a dry lake bed.

Picture sourced from the internet; text is mine.