A 13-year-old girl from a town
near Bari has been saved from killing herself after playing the
'Blue Whale' online suicide game, sources said Wednesday.
The girl was reportedly involved in the notorious game along
with four other girls she had made friends with in an Internet
chat room, sources said.
Police managed to trace the five and saved the girl from
committing suicide.
The girl had reached a very advanced level of the game, at
the end of which suicide is expected.
Photos and announcements of her suicide have been found in
chat rooms.
Police said at least 30 young people have played the deadly
game in Italy in the last six months, mainly girls.
"The problem exists," minors prosecutor Ferruccio De
Salvatore said.
He said the game entailed going through 50 dangerous actions
led by a "virtual figure who manipulates youngsters to the point
of getting them to commit extreme acts: walking along rail
lines, balancing on the edge of cornices, or crossing busy roads
and motorways at night".
The Bari girl had already started doing some of these things
and had started setting her alarm during the night to wake up
and watch horror films and play satanic music.
In the online game, participants are asked to carve the whale
onto their bodies while watching horror movies", and the game
then demands players complete 50 tasks in 50 days, with the last
task to commit suicide.
The game that targets teenagers and young children is
triggering panic among parents and authorities worldwide after
apparently inciting several suicides in Russia.
Several suspected cases were reported in Italy last year,
most of them in Lombardy, the region around Milan.
A year ago a 16-year-old electrician student threw himself
out of the second floor window of the professional institute in
Ventimiglia, in one of the more recent cases.
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