3 Colombian Teens on Facebook 'Hit List' Killed

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.

The first two killings took place on Aug. 15. "On that day, officials say, 16-year-old student Diego Ferney Jaramillo and 17-year-old CD retailer Eibart Alejandro Ruiz Munoz were shot and killed while riding a motorcycle on the road between Puerto Asis and the town of Puerto Caicedo," reports CNN.

Then, the first portion of the list was published on Aug. 17, containing 69 names of local young men, including those killed, and a warning: Get out of town within three days or suffer the same fate as the victims. The note has since been blocked by Facebook.

Initially, police thought it was a hoax, like many other Facebook death threats the world over. But when another list of 31 women appeared online days later, public defender Volmar Perez called a special security council to address the situation.

However, on first day of the council's meeting, Aug. 20, the unidentified assailants gunned-down 19-year-old Norbey Alexander Vargas and wounded his friend, 16-year-old Juan Pablo Zambrano Anacona, who attempted to pursue them as they fled the scene of the crime. They remain on the lam. No arrests have been made, and police have yet to release the names of any suspects to the press.

Terror-stricken parents have already begun sending some of the children listed out of the town for safety as authorities continue to scramble in their attempts to pinpoint the perpetrators of both the note and the killings. Facebook, for its part, has yet to respond to requests for comment from the media.