Boy, 8, cut from 26ft crocodile which swallowed him whole while he was swimming

An eight-year-old boy was tragically killed after being swallowed by a crocodile while swimming in a river with his little brother.

The boy's dad desperately chased the animal and reportedly punched it with his bare hands but the predator wasn't caught till the next day, a search and rescue official said.

The child was attacked in Indonesia’s East Kalimantan province and swam in a river known to be a crocodile habitat.

It is understood the six-metre crocodile was then found by locals and cut open on March 4, the Australian Associated Press reports.

The family wept as disturbing footage shows the child's body being pulled from the crocodile's tummy.

Horrifying footage shows the boy's body being pulled from the crocodile's stomach (viralpress.com)

The search and rescue official said the family "went to the river often to bathe and get water for cooking".

In 2018, Indonesian villagers armed with knives, hammers and clubs slaughtered 292 crocodiles in revenge for the death of a man killed by a crocodile at a breeding farm, Reuters reported.

Photographs released by Antara news agency showed bloodied carcasses of the crocodiles in a large pile in the Sorong district of the eastern Indonesian province of West Papua.

The boy's dad had desperately tried to catch his son's killer but it was only caught by locals the next day (viralpress.com)

The head of Indonesia’s Natural Resources Conservation Agency in West Papua said that the 48-year-old victim had entered the crocodile farm and was likely picking grass for animal feed when he was attacked.

“An employee heard someone screaming for help, he quickly went there and saw a crocodile attacking someone,” Basar Manullang said in a statement.

After the burial of the man, villagers entered the farm and killed all the crocodiles, said Manullang.

Manullang said the farm had been given a license to breed protected saltwater and New Guinea crocodiles in 2013 for preservation and also to harvest some of the animals.

But one of the conditions was that the reptiles did not disturb the community, he said.

“To prevent this from happening again, farming license holders need to secure surrounding areas,” Manullang explained.

He said his agency was coordinating with police in their investigation.

“Crocodiles are God’s creatures that need to be protected too,” Manullang added.