Doctors in New Zealand had to remove part of a 13-year-old boy’s intestine after he swallowed dozens of strong magnets bought from a popular online marketplace.

Axar.az informs, citing Independent, the boy swallowed up to 100 small, high-powered magnets he ordered from Temu, despite the objects being banned for sale for personal or domestic use in the country since 2014.

Surgeons called the case "alarming" due to the difficulty in enforcing the ban, with online marketplaces allowing children to access the magnets cheaply.

“We present the case of a 13-year-old boy admitted to hospital with four days of generalised abdominal pain,” surgeons at the Tauranga Hospital wrote in the New Zealand Medical Journal.

“He disclosed ingesting approximately 80–100 5x2mm high-power (neodymium) magnets about one week prior, which were purchased from an overseas online marketplace (Temu),” they wrote in the study.

Neodymium is a rare-earth metal element used to make some of the strongest magnets available and they can be easy to buy online. When ingested, such magnets can punch holes in the intestine, and be life-threatening, doctors warned.

“When swallowed, these magnets can attach to each other through the bowel, leading to fistulas, which are abnormal connections between two parts inside of the body, or they can create holes in the intestines,” paediatric gastroenterologist Sunpreet Kaur said.

“These magnets can do a lot of damage, require surgery, or even cause death when swallowed,” according to a blog post by the University of California Davis Health.