In the latest stomach twisting video from ISIS we are shown the new depths to which they have sunk. Much like the rebels in Sierra Leone’s ongoing internal conflicts, ISIS is now using children to carry out their horrific crimes. As if it is not bad enough to see children at the tender age of 12 or thirteen so brainwashed that they are able to aim a gun at a kneeling prisoners head and shoot them at point blank range, some of the children aren’t even from areas we would think of as the Islamic world.

An alarming number of British citizens have gone to join ISIS, over two hundred according to a database created by the BBC. The majority of the Brits who have either been convicted of trying to offer support or to join the terrorist group seem to hail from London (100) while the others are from smaller areas spread throughout the country.The BBC has also produced a map that shows where British jihadis have died fighting with ISIS with most of them dying in Aleppo (Syria) and Raqqa (also in Syria and known as ISIS’s capital).

The British boy in the video is identified as Abu Abdullah al-Britani. The last name is “British” in Arabic and it has been suggested that the boy may be the son of a British jihadi who married in Syria while fighting for ISIS prior to his death since “Abu” means “son of”. According to a translation of the speech in the video, the boys explain how “No one can save the Kurds without America” prior to the children raising their pistols and executing the men kneeling before them.

This is particularly horrific to me since my own son is just a few years younger than these boys. I cannot imagine my sweet little guy standing over someone and putting a metal slug in the back of their head and then proceeding to butcher their body with a knife, which these boys do in emulation of older jihadis.

This phenomenon is certainly nothing new, no matter how sick it makes civilized people. Sierra Leone had child soldiers drafted into amphetamine driven murder squads. A UK security company faced criticism earlier this year for hiring former child soldiers from the war torn African nation to serve as contractors in Iraq. In just May of this year Colombian “freedom fighters” FARC “allowed” children younger than 15 to leave their ranks as part of the peace negotiations with the government of that country.

But no matter how many times I hear the story or see the pictures it never fails to make me ill. These are children. They deserve to be playing soccer and worrying about which Lego sets to spend their allowance on. They should not be dressed in camouflage, executing and carving up fellow human beings on the orders of their elders.

These children will be scared for life if they manage to survive the hell that they are presently living in, and somehow they will have to figure out how to move forward with their lives. Who will help put their broken and scared minds back together, and is that even possible when you think of what they will have seen and done?