Nigeria says abducted students are free as a Sudan court sentences Dagalo to death

President Bola Tinubu said military, police, and intelligence personnel rescued all 46 students and staff abducted in May from schools in Oyo State. Eight suspects were arrested and some abductors were killed in the operation. The claim was an official account of a completed rescue.

A court in Port Sudan sentenced Rapid Support Forces leader Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo and 15 others to death in absentia for war crimes in Darfur, including the killing of former West Darfur governor Khamis Abbakar in 2023 during the Battle of Geneina. The sentences were in absentia. They did not include a report that Dagalo was in custody.

The European Parliament voted 476 to 28, with 96 abstentions, for a resolution urging the European Union to designate the Rapid Support Forces a terrorist organization and to sanction people responsible for attacks on civilians in El-Obeid. Sudan's army said it had retaken the Blue Nile town of Kurmuk. A drone strike killed 10 people traveling to a wedding near Omdurman, and rights groups said recent drone strikes on civilian vehicles had killed 20.

Nigerian troops were reported to have killed more than 300 suspected kidnapping and cattle-rustling gang members in an operation in Gummi, Zamfara State. Pakistan's military said three militant attacks in Balochistan since July 6 had killed 42 army and police personnel, while security forces killed 54 militants. Those were separate body counts from the student rescue.

A murder investigation was opened into the death of British politician Ann Widdecombe, and police said they had arrested a British man. In Tanzania, police arrested 130 people after a ban on rallies aimed at protests over election deaths. A United States grand jury indicted eight men over an alleged plot against the UFC event at the White House the previous month.

The Oyo rescue number is 46 students and staff. The Port Sudan death sentences cover Dagalo and 15 others. The European Parliament vote was 476 in favor, 28 against, and 96 abstentions. Those figures should not be merged into one toll.