Facebook Death Threats Come True: Colombian Teens Murdered Off 'Hit List'

A status update nobody wants to see: Three Colombian teenagers have been killed after their names appeared, along with 97 others, on a multipart "hit list" posted on Facebook, according to multiple international reports.

Even more frightening, police don't know who is responsible for the killings and the list itself, or the reason for the selection of names that appear upon it, although some of the victims allegedly had ties to members of drug gangs.

Colombian news website El Espacio reports that it was the work of Los Rastrojos ("The Stubble"), which has been described as "one of the most powerful neo-paramilitary drug organizations of the country," and has a history of making and following through on death threats.

Some reports suggest that the list could be the work of rival paramilitary groups -- possibly even Colombia's most infamous, FARC -- that operate in the region around Puerto Asis, a small city close to the southern border with Ecuador. For the past 10 years, the town has been "ground zero for the US-backed military assault on coca-growing areas in Colombia," according to Mother Jones.

via Facebook Death Threats Come True: Colombian Teens Murdered Off 'Hit List'.