A dangerous challenge, which turned into a tragedy… As often.
A girl died of suffocation in Palermo, Sicily while competing in a headscarf game challenge on TikTok, media reported on Friday.
Antonella, 10, who took part in a "blackout challenge" on the social network in the bathroom of the family home, had put a belt around her neck with the aim of staying without breathing as long as possible, everything by registering with his cell phone.
It was her five-year-old sister who discovered her unconscious body on Wednesday evening.
Taken immediately to the Palermo Children's Hospital by her parents, she did not survive.
The "headscarf game", in which children block their breathing until they pass out to experience strong sensations, each year causes accidents, some of which are fatal.
"My daughter who is dying from extreme gambling on TikTok, how can I accept it?"
"
The parents told the daily La Repubblica that it was another sister of Antonella, aged nine, who explained to them what had happened: "Antonella was playing the game of asphyxiation".
“We didn't know,” the girl's father told the newspaper.
“We didn't know she was in that game. I knew Antonella was going to TikTok for choreography, to see videos.
But how could I imagine this atrocity?
"
"My daughter, my little Antonella who dies from extreme gambling on TikTok: how can I accept it?"
Added Angelo Sicomero, who with his wife decided to donate Antonella's organs so that "other children can live thanks to her".
The Palermo public prosecutor's office has opened an investigation for "incitement to suicide".
The girl's cell phone has been seized by investigators, who will need to determine if Antonella was live with other participants, if someone invited her to participate in the challenge, or if she was making this video for a friend or family member. knowledge.
Morning essentials newsletter
A tour of the news to start the day
Subscribe to the newsletterAll newsletters
In reaction to this tragedy, the platform launched in 2016, which claims 100 million users in Europe, issued a statement: “The safety of the TikTok community is our top priority, we are at the disposal of the competent authorities to collaborate on their investigation ”.
