Jihadists from the Boko Haram terror group hacked to death a 12-year-old boy with machetes for his refusal to become a “child soldier” of the group.

Although news of the slaughter has only just reached the west, the militants are believed to have abducted the Christian schoolboy in a raid on the northern Cameroon district of Tourou on or around November 19.

The boy and his mother reportedly escaped from their home as the militants began their raid on the village, going door to door looting homes of anything of value, including clothes and bedding. The jihadists eventually caught up with the boy, killing him after hearing of his unwillingness to join their army. Members of the jihadist group frequently abduct male children and oblige them to train as soldiers.

Boko Haram has been intensifying assaults on Christian villages in the far north of Cameroon in an effort to extend a west African Islamic caliphate from north-eastern Nigeria all the way to northern Cameroon.

In early November, Boko Haram militants killed retired Christian pastor David Mokoni along with a hearing-impaired Christian boy during an attack on a church in Moskota, in northern Cameroon. A few days earlier, Islamic militants split the skull of a 15-year-old Christian boy with an axe as he slept in Kotserehé village.

A member of the village’s vigilance committee said the attackers came to the village on October 31 “armed with machetes, axes, knives, and clubs, and cut out anyone they met on their way,” adding that “they were literally chopped up by their executioners.”

According to United Nations estimates, more than 170,000 Cameroonians, mostly Christians, have been driven from their homes by Boko Haram.

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