Parents in the US are being warned about a new online challenge after an 11-year-old girl was hospitalised with facial burns this week.

Jamoneisha Merritt from The Bronx, New York was burnt on her face, neck, shoulders and chest when her friends poured boiling water over her while she was sleeping on Monday. They were thought to be participating in what's known as the 'hot water challenge', according to Time. Victims of the viral 'game' have hot water thrown over them. "She's very sad," Ebony Merritt, Jamoneisha's mother, told Spectrum News.

"She's emotionally messed up. She don't understand why they did that to her. She thought they was her friends." "I was told that they didn't like her. And they just been bullying her. They've been on Snapchat. It's been going on several times. The girl admitted it. 'I don't like her. I wanted to do it.'"

It's not the first such case in the States. Wesley Smith, a ten-year-old boy from North Carolina, suffered severe burns in July when he and his step-brother tried the challenge.

"Watch what your kids are doing on the internet," said Jimmy Daugherty, the boy's step father. "When we got to the hospital and I actually seen it, I thought the poor boy had been through a war."