A/HRC/4/3 page 12 journal, wrote to its editor-in-chief asking to be kept informed, once the investigation had been completed, of the journal’s conclusions about the validity and reliability of these particularly serious allegations and statistics, since the figures mentioned above are considerably higher than those generally supplied by the various sources. 29. The journal assured the independent expert of its desire to cooperate and agreed to pass on its conclusions, which should be available in February 2007. 30. Such destabilizing practices can even make use of the Internet, as is shown by the manipulation that the independent expert considered necessary to investigate and on which he reports below. 31. In November 2006, a set of seven photographs allegedly taken in Haiti was sent to the independent expert with the caption “This is so sad!! Haiti”. The photographs depicted, inter alia, a mass open grave, very young armed children, snipers and a corpse stretched out in front of a building bearing a plaque with the words “United States Embassy”. 32. Alerted by a journalist who had doubts about the authenticity of these photographs, which appeared to have been taken in Monrovia, the independent expert launched an on-site investigation with the help of correspondents who are familiar with both Haiti and Liberia. The caption given to the photographs, which does not implicate the person who took them, seems to be another example of manipulation, since the investigation established that: (a) The building is indeed the United States Embassy in Monrovia, and the way in which the bodies are lying in one of the photographs seems to correspond to those bodies that were placed in front of the building after the bombing of one of the embassy’s outbuildings; (b) Other photographs correspond to the violent scenes that took place in June and July 2003 chiefly on the bridge in Monrovia called the “New Bridge”, which can be clearly identified in the photographs (these can be consulted in the Office of the High Commissioner). 2. The wave of kidnappings for ransom 33. According to yet unconfirmed assessments by MINUSTAH, the number of kidnappings in the last nine months of 2005 is estimated to be 467, involving 634 victims. The number of kidnappings between January to mid-December 2006 has been placed at 445, involving 660 victims. This situation took a turn for the worse at the end of December 2006 with the appearance of such new practices as: − Targeted kidnappings of schoolchildren: in December, more than 30 schoolchildren were kidnapped. While most of them were released, two were executed: Farah Dessources, 17 years old, who was shot several times by her kidnappers even though her family had paid $4,000 of the $30,000 demanded, and Carl Rubens Francillon, 6 years old, kidnapped on 8 November in front of his school and found strangled despite the fact that a ransom of around $3,400 had been paid;