Boko Haram militants have attacked villages in northeastern Nigeria, killing and terrorizing civilians and political leaders. (AP File Photo)

The Nigerian terrorist group Boko Haram beheaded a six-year-old boy during a June attack on the predominantly Christian village of Attagara, according to an eyewitness account provided by the Voice of the Martyrs ( VOM) missionary organization.

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“Over 100 militants dressed in military uniforms swarmed the predominantly Christian village just as Sunday church services were beginning on June 1,” VOM reports.

“The rebels opened fire on the village and went after people with their machetes.”

Boko Haram became internationally known after it staged a mass kidnapping of over 250 Nigerian school girls in April. The majority of the girls are still missing. Last month, the group publicly aligned itself with the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

According to VOM, which has been assisting some 30 people injured in the attacks, “55-year-old Sawaltha Wandala witnessed the Boko Haram slaughtering children at a church as he arrived for the second service. He saw the men throw one child into a ditch. More concerned for the child than his own safety, he picked up the 6-year-old boy, who had survived being severely slashed, and immediately rushed to take the child to the hospital in Cameroon.”

“Sawaltha was stopped by five insurgents, who grabbed the boy from his arms and beheaded him, before turning to beat Sawaltha with tree branches.”

“They finished their attack striking him in the head with a large rock, leaving him for dead with blood running from his nose and mouth.”

The latest attack is believed to be revenge for the deaths of seven Boko Haram gunman during an earlier raid on the village on May 25.

Boko Haram returned to Attagara and other villages in the Gwoza district following their first onslaught. “The back to back attacks left an estimated 200 people, including small children, dead,” VOM reported.

John Yakubu, another Christian villager from Attagara, reported being tied to a tree for three days and tortured with a machete and a knife by Boko Haram terrorists in an attempt to forcibly convert him to Islam.

The bloody raids by Boko Haram were confirmed by CNN, which reported in June that "heavily armed gunmen dressed as soldiers in all-terrain vehicles and on motorcycles attacked Goshe, Attagara, Agapalwa and Aganjara villages in Gwoza district, shooting residents and burning homes."

In Attagara, “the insurgents set fire to homes and a church and killed dozens of residents, according to Bulus Yashi, who fled to Gamboru Ngala,” CNN reported at the time.

VOM is an “inter-denominational Christian organization dedicated to assisting the persecuted church worldwide.” It has offices worldwide, including one in Nigeria.