Blue whale girl, 13, saved from suicide

(ANSA) - Bari, October 31 - 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.