A warning has gone out to parents after a sinister social media suicide challenge spread to the island.

Schools including Cronk-y-Berry, St Mary’s Roman Catholic Primary and St Ninian’s High School put out alerts this week after a number of pupils found the creepy Momo challenge pop up at the end of an otherwise harmless YouTube video they were watching.

The Momo challenge encourages young children to hurt or even kill themselves. It has been blamed for a number of deaths in Russia, Argentina and Colombia.

But children's charities insist it is a hoax.

Players of the ’game’, made aware of the challenge through various social media platforms including YouTube, Minecraft and Playstation, are apparently encouraged to contact Momo - a disturbing young woman with bulging eyes, long black hair, bird legs and distorted features.

After providing their mobile number, they receive instructions to perform a series of challenges via text or WhatsApp. This leads to abusive messaging and their mobile device being hacked. The final challenge is to commit suicide in order to meet ’Mother Bird’, it is claimed.

In a message to parents posted on the Cronk-y-Berry School website, head teacher Rob Sellors said: ’You may have seen or heard about the Momo challenge on social media sites. This is a new dangerous and creepy challenge spreading across social media.

’The "Momo challenge", or the "Momo suicide challenge", encourages kids to hurt others, themselves, and eventually to take their own lives.

’There have been a number of children in school today who have mentioned that this Momo challenge popped up at the end of a video they were watching on YouTube about Minecraft.’

Schools have been posting links to information sites and factsheets giving advice on how to talk to children who may have already seen Momo.

St Mary’s RC School said it was reminding children in class about the importance of e-safety and stressing they can talk to staff if they see anything on the web that has scared them. ’The Momo challenge is particularly disturbing and distressing, causing a serious risk to the safety welfare and wellbeing of children,’ said acting head teacher Donna Martin.

This advice includes talking to your children and discussing what they should do if they receive a message from Momo, and checking your child’s phone, iPod and computer regularly.

A spokesman for the Manx police said: ’There are a lot of concerning things on the internet and parents needs to be aware of what their children can look at.

’We appreciate that children are accessing the internet when their parents are not about.

’If children see anything of concern they should speak to their parents or guardians for support and advice.’