The messages, spread via e-mail and Facebook, warned dozens of youths in the southern Colombian town of Puerto Asis to clear out within three days — or die. At first, residents thought it was a joke. But on Aug. 15, two of the blacklisted teenagers were gunned down while riding a motorcycle; a third was shot dead on Friday. Meanwhile, the number of people on the death list, believed to have been compiled by one of a new crop of drug trafficking gangs, expanded to 69.
Fear and paranoia are spreading through the town of 70,000. Several families have pulled their children out of school, put their houses up for sale, and fled, according to Andrés Verdugo, the No. 2 official in Puerto Asis, located in the remote jungle state of Putumayo on the Ecuadorian border. "These criminal groups want to sow panic and take advantage of the chaos," Verdugo told TIME. "And that's what they've achieved." (See pictures from inside Facebook headquarters.)
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