The news story the world ignored.

In 2014, Boko Haram — an Islamist jihadist group defined as a terrorist organisation by the Australian Government — abducted 276 students from a girls' school in Chibok, Nigeria.

It sparked outrage across the globe, the #BringBackOurGirls campaign subsequently going viral. The news story reached Hollywood too, with the likes of Michelle Obama, Angelina Jolie and Salma Hayek advocating for the girls' release. 

A decade on from the kidnappings, 98 out of the 276 girls kidnapped are still being held by Boko Haram.

In fact, there are over a thousand innocent students who have been abducted from their schools in the years since the attack on Chibok — including an abduction this week.

Watch: one of the Chibok schoolgirl escapees tells her story. Post continues below.

Gunmen attacked a school in Nigeria's Borno State region, abducting at least 287 students, the headteacher told authorities. It marked the second mass abduction in the African nation in less than a week.

Locals told The Associated Press (AP) the assailants surrounded the government-owned school just as the pupils were about to start the school day. Parents remain desperate for news, hoping they'll be reunited with their children, alive. 

One of these parents is Rashidat Hamza. All but one of her six children are among the nearly 300 students abducted, her kids aged seven to 18.

"The gunmen don't allow us to have peace," Rashidat said to AP. "We hope for help from the government so that they will arrest the attackers. We don't have security — no soldier, no police."

Also among the kidnapped children is seven-year-old Safiya Kuriga. She had complained that morning she was feeling feverish, but her mother still made her attend class. At school Safiya gets fed and educated — two necessities she has limited access to outside of the school environment. Her mother is now utterly devastated, telling Reuters she has been "crying" constantly as she waits for news.

Parents have been waiting outside the school, desperate for news. Image: AAP.

Lawan Yaro's five grandchildren are among the abducted. He says their hopes are already fading into fear.

Shehu Lawal is the father of a 13-year-old boy who is also among the missing.

"Since this happened, my brain has been scattering," he told reporters. "My child didn't even eat breakfast before leaving. Even his mother fainted. We were worried, thinking she would die."

No group has yet claimed responsibility for any of the recent abductions, though militant jihadists waging an insurgency in the region are suspected of carrying out the kidnapping.

Women, children and students are often targeted in these mass abductions. Many victims are released only after paying huge ransoms.

Bola Ahmed Tinubu was elected President of Nigeria last year after promising to end the violence. But there has been little to no tangible improvement in the security situation yet.

In a statement following the news of the Borno State kidnappings, President Tinubu said: "I am confident that the victims will be rescued. Nothing else is acceptable to me and the waiting family members of these abducted citizens. Justice will be decisively administered."

For the families though — not only of these recently kidnapped students, but the families whose children were abducted years ago — the Nigerian government's promises are falling on deaf ears. 

Image: AAP.

It reveals the failure of the Nigerian authorities to learn from the heartbreak of Chibok and, ultimately, to protect children, says Amnesty International.

As Isa Sanusi, the Acting Director of Amnesty International Nigeria, recently noted to the press: "Parents of the 98 Chibok school girls who are still being held by Boko Haram — as well as other children abducted by gunmen — are living in anguish, knowing that their children are in the hands of ruthless individuals who subject their loved ones to chilling brutalities.

"The missing school students should all be returned home to their families, and all those responsible for committing grave violations must face justice."

One of the survivors who escaped Boko Haram was 15 when she was abducted.

For four months she was locked in a cage, and forced to marry a soldier. She escaped, two months pregnant, and was caring for her baby and two orphans — boys kidnapped by Boko Haram to be child soldiers — when she was found begging in the streets.

Another girl who managed to flee said: "Every morning I wake up and recall the condition I left them in. I cry, I feel sorry for them. It's too long to be in such a deplorable condition. The government must fulfil its promise of rescuing all the girls."

With AAP.

Feature Image: AAP.