Five years after she last saw her daughter, Yana Galang fears the world has forgotten a tragedy that splintered families and is now the subject of an award-winning documentary

Last week, Yana Galang left her small farm in Borno state, Nigeria, in the care of seven of her eight children and travelled by bus and train for the first time to the capital, Lagos. From there, she became the first member of her family ever to board a plane, and came to New York.

The mother of one of the 112 Nigerian schoolgirls of Chibok still missing after being abducted by Boko Haram in 2014 came to the city during the UN general assembly, on a mission to remind the world that – five years on – their children still have not been brought home.

Galang feels the world had forgotten about the kidnapped girls.

“If this was the president’s or vice-president’s daughter, they would have found her by now,” Galang told the Guardian. “But in three years they don’t call us. We’ve heard nothing. We cry and cry and the tears dry, and still we have no answer.”

Her daughter, Rifkatu, was 18 when she was abducted along with 275 other girls from her secondary school dormitory by members of the terrorist group. Every month, Galaga washes her abducted daughter’s clothes so they will be fresh for her when she comes home. She would be 23 now. Galang has faith that her daughter is still alive, but she has lost hope that the Nigerian government is doing anything to help locate her.

The mass abduction in April 2014 shocked the world, dominated headlines and led to the viral #bringbackourgirls campaign. In the months that followed, local and international media swarmed the town of Chibok. “They came again whenever some girls were returned,” says Galang. “Now, just a few journalists come each year on the anniversary of the abduction.”

It was the silence surrounding the once huge story that led Nigerian film-maker Joel Kachi Benson to visit Chibok last year. What he found was a town still traumatised by loss and enduring not just the uncertainty of their daughter’s fates but also the grinding hardship of poverty. He decided to make a film there.

On his second day of shooting, he met Galang. He knew he had found his main character. Galang had become the parents’ unofficial leader, partly because she can speak English. “Yana never set out to become a leader. She became a leader because of tragedy,” says Benson.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The poster for Joel Kashi Benson documentary Daughters of Chibok, which won the virtual reality story award at the Venice film festival

“When I first met him I didn’t want to talk to him. I saw him walk towards me with his little scruffy hair and beard, I thought maybe he was one of the terrorists!” Galang recounts.

The outcome of his time there is the deeply moving short film Daughters of Chibok. Benson shot the film in virtual reality because he wanted to take viewers into Chibok, with its dusty vegetable market and tin-roofed homes. It is a goal he has achieved perfectly.

“Most of these women have other children they are struggling to feed and educate, but one is missing and, while you are yet to find her, the others are living in abject poverty – that is a double tragedy,” says Benson.

Stress has inevitably taken a heavy toll on the girls’ parents, 33 of whom have died after falling ill.

“I wanted to amplify the voices of these women,” Benson says. “I wanted to help them get global reach. Because it is not that they are not talking. They are talking, but nobody is listening.”

Benson’s film won the virtual reality story award at the Venice film festival on 9 September. The ensuing publicity has brought new hope to the parents of the missing girls. In his acceptance speech in Venice, Benson says: “You cannot move on from this tragedy because it is not over yet.”

Benson raised the money to bring Galang to New York as part of what is now a very personal cause. The two have become very close. Benson calls her “Mama”.

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“I really love him,” says Galang. “I call him on the phone just to hear his voice.”

Benson himself knows first hand the struggle of poverty. His father abandoned his mother when he was just 10, leaving her with six children and no skills. His mother died when he was 17 and Benson then spent some years homeless, sleeping in churches with his brother.

“My own mother died of heartbreak and poverty in front of my eyes,” says Benson. “When I met Yana I thought: ‘No I can’t allow this to happen again.’”

Galang says her message is a simple one. “We are begging you, the leaders of the world, to join hands with the Nigerian government to please bring our girls for us. They are our blood, we still miss them. To lose someone who you love is very difficult.”