Social media game claims Saudi teenager's life

RIYADH - Saudi authorities have launched an inquiry into the circumstances of the death of a teenage girl, who was found hanging at her family's home in Medina on Friday.

According to initial investigations, the 13-year-old girl is believed to have committed suicide under the effect of a social media game called the "Blue Whale Challenge" that is believed to have claimed hundreds of lives in countries across the world.

The death of the Saudi girl is the latest in the Middle East, following a spate of suicides in different countries in the region in recent times.

The game began drawing significant attention after Saudi Twitter user Abdullah bin Fuhaid announced the death of his 12-year-old cousin, Abdul Rahman Al-Ahmari, in a June 28 tweet that has since gone viral.

"My uncle's son, who is in sixth grade, recently passed away under the influence of a video game, which forced him to commit suicide by hanging himself in order to reach a new level. We belong to Allah and to him we shall return," Bin Fuhaid wrote.

Other reports of Arab teens falling victims to the game include a Moroccan undergraduate student who died after jumping off a building rooftop, and five children in Algeria who committed suicide by hanging after playing the game.

In March, the parents of seven Tunisian children who claimed their children had killed themselves requested a ban on the game from Tunisian courts.

The deadly online game, run by anonymous online administrators, is played over a period of 50 days, requiring the player complete tasks given by their "controller". The challenges begin with a simple task, for example drawing a blue whale on a piece of paper, before gradually developing to riskier and riskier tasks, with players reportedly being asked to take drugs, cut themselves and kill animals.

Participants are eventually given the final challenge of killing themselves in order to win.

The game is believed to have first launched in Russia in 2013. The creator of the game, Philipp Budeikin, was caught and arrested by Russian authorities. A court in Siberia sentenced Budeikin to three years in jail for "inciting Russian youths to kill themselves" in 2017.

At the time Budeikin, a 21-year-old former psychology student, freely admitted that his intention was to push teenagers to suicide.