We must find the missing schoolgirls. Then we must prevent it happening again

28 days have passed since the abduction of over 200 girls from their school in Chibok in northern Nigeria.

28 days of unimaginable agony for their families.

28 days of terror for those innocent young children.

Then yesterday we learnt of another eight girls abducted – girls only a few years older than my own daughter.

The world has united in revulsion at this most horrific of acts. Campaigners, politicians and community leaders have rightly spoken out. As Shadow Foreign Secretary I have also added my voice – but also as a father of a nine year old girl, I find it simply heartbreaking to contemplate the suffering these poor children are enduring.

This horror is the worst any parent could endure. Helpless, desperate and utterly devastated at the prospect of that which you most cherish in the world, falling prey to that which you most despise. All of us have a responsibility to do what we can to prevent such tragedies from occurring.

But the truth is, these are not simply tragic events – because that implies that there was some aspect of fate or fortune that dictated them. These were horrific, premeditated attacks perpetrated by depraved terrorists whose ultimate goal is death, destruction, and suffering.

The world has spoken up and spoken out. Millions of people are joining the #bringbackourgirls campaign, and that has helped force the issue onto the agenda of policy makers. And politicians from all sides have come together to try and coordinate what more can be done.

Labour’s former Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, on the ground in Nigeria, is doing vital work to help ensure the Nigerian government have the support they need, and his visit to Abuja is an important moment in focusing the attention of the world on the plight of the victims. So all of us should welcome the decision by the UK government to commit a team of experts to help support the Nigerian-led effort to rescue the captured school girls, and they will have our support in setting out what steps can be taken to help resolve this crisis.

But I regret that the government has not yet come to the House of Commons to deliver a fuller statement on the issue. Labour has been calling on them to do this for a number of days now, and it is difficult to understand why they have not. Given that levels of concern for the welfare of the abducted girls are increasing by the day, it is right that the Government now provide a fuller account of their involvement in efforts to rescue them, and I hope and expect they will do so in the coming days.

Parliament needs to be able to ask questions around whether the UK intends to participate in the US-led ‘coordinating cell’ based in Abuja, whether they support France’s offer to divert troops already station in the region to help in the rescue, and what role the British High Commission will be playing in the crucial coming days?

The rescue of these innocent girls is the vital task in the coming days.

But the next weeks and months are going to be crucial in determining the future course of Nigeria and the prospects for such attacks happening again in the future.

Boko Haram claimed responsibility for this latest attack in a chilling video that exposed the extent of their murderous ambitions. But policy makers must wake up to the fact that we already know Boko Haram have ambitions not just to terrorise communities, but to control whole swathes of the country as well. They are today engaged in a relentless campaign to try and dismantle the few remnants of Nigerian central government control over the north-east of the country. If Boko-Haram are allowed to extend their hold over the country, Nigeria’s prospects as a booming African economy and thriving democracy could give way to a country at war, exporting only refugees, terrorists and instability across the region.

Nigerian President Jonathan bears a heavy share of the responsibility for preventing this from happening. He was elected on a platform of tackling corruption, fighting the insurgency and promoting economic development.

He needs to do more to deliver on these aims if he is to have a hope of protecting Africa’s biggest country from further instability. But the international community also has a duty and an interest in helping him in these efforts.

Our focus today must be on rescuing the innocents, but our task for the future must be doing what we can to prevent such missions from ever having been needed in the first place.

Douglas Alexander MP is Labour’s Shadow Foreign Secretary