Ahmed was 14 when militants of the Islamic State group captured him in his hometown of Raqqa, Syria, hung him from the ceiling by his arms and started hitting him across his body.
Video of Ahmed's torture and interrogation by the extremist fighters, which was published by the BBC on Monday, appears to show the young boy screaming, begging and crying while being savagely beaten by an armed man dressed in a dark, long robe.
"I thought about my mom. I thought I was going to die and leave my friends, my family and relatives all behind," Ahmed told BBC reporter Quentin Sommerville about the days he spent in captivity.
Sommerville reported that Ahmed was detained by Islamic State militants after he left a backpack with a bomb near one of the group's meeting sites in Raqqa, their stronghold in Syria. The boy said he had been tricked into planting the bomb by men he knew, but was sentenced to death by the extremist group regardless. However, Ahmed's executioner took pity, and the boy was able to flee to Turkey.
The United Nations has accused the Islamic State group of flagrant violations of children's rights.
According to a UN report released in February, the extremist group systematically killed, tortured and raped children of minority groups in Iraq. There are also numerous reports that the group has recruited and trained child soldiers. Children as young as 13 have been deployed to the front lines of the wars in Syria and Iraq, according to the UN.
The United Nations warned mid-March that five years into Syria's civil war, the situation of more than 5.6 million children in the country is desperate. About 2.6 million children are out of school and some 2 million live in areas cut off from aid.
“As the crisis enters its fifth year, this generation of young people is still in danger of being lost to a cycle of violence -- replicating in the next generation what they suffered in their own,” UNICEF Executive Director Anthony Lake said on March 12.
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