A band of armed men storm into the house of a six-year-old boy in the dead of night.
They knock his terrified mother unconscious before bursting into the child's bedroom, hauling him from his cot and pinning him to the ground.
Then one member of the group - the boy's own father - steps forward with a machete and mercilessly swings it down to sever the boy's hand.
They gleefully make off with the body part, leaving the child screaming and bleeding in his empty bedroom.
No, this is not the plot of a Stephen King novel or a skin-crawling horror film.
