The two main guerilla organizations in eastern Ethiopia's Ogaden region—the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) and the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF)—say their forces have killed more than 150 government troops in joint operations this month. Ethiopian officials deny the claim. The OLF seeks autonomy for region's majority Oromo peoples, while the ONLF wants an independent state for ethnic Somalis in the region. Last month, the ONLF attacked a Chinese-run oil installation, killing 65 Ethiopian and nine Chinese workers. (BBC, May 21)

Hundreds of Somalis who have fled violence in Mogadishu for the separatist enclave of Somaliland are unable to obtain aid from the UN as refugees or internally displaced persons (IDPs), because the UN does not recognize the breakaway republic as independent, while the government of Somaliland is unwilling to compromise claims of independence by recognizing Somalis as IDPs. (AlJazeera, May 21)

Security forces are on high alert in India's Punjab state as Sikh religious leaders called a bundh (general strike) to protest what they say is blasphemy by a breakaway sect. Schools, markets, businesses and transportation were paralysed across Punjab May 22. Sikh protesters also clashed with police in neighboring Haryana state, leaving one dead and dozens injured. The controversy began after Gurmeet Ram Singh, leader of the multi-faith Dera Sacha Sauda, appeared in a newspaper advertisement dressed in the attire of revered Guru Gobind Singh (1666-1708), the tenth and last Sikh guru. (Deccan Herald, AFP, May 3)

From the Global Information Network, May 21:

New York, NY — Mauritanian exiles living in New York filed a class action lawsuit today against Maaouya Ould Sidi Ahmed Taya, for the crimes committed during a campaign of ethnic cleansing of Black Mauritanians from 1989 to 1991. The lawsuit was filed in United States Federal Court by attorneys from the Refugee Defense Alliance.

Fourteen assassinations attributed to narco gangs were carried out May 20 in Mexico City, Chihuahua, Nuevo León, Guerrero, Sinaloa and Oaxaca. Additionally, federal army troops exchanged fire with 20 gunmen with AR-15 automatic rifles, bullet-proof vests and uniforms of the Federal Agency of Investigation (AFI) at a checkpoint on the Apatzingán-El Alcalde road in Michoacán.

On May 16, during a visit to Washington, DC, Costa Rican president Oscar Arias announced that Costa Rica will stop sending police agents to be trained at the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC), a US military training institution formerly known as the School of the Americas (SOA). Critics of the school, located at Fort Benning, Georgia, charge that it has trained many of the hemisphere's worst human right abusers.

Lawyers for New York state and the US Department of Homeland Security argued during a May 15 hearing in state court in Brooklyn that Haitian paramilitary leader Emmanuel "Toto" Constant should be released early and deported quickly to Haiti. Constant has entered a guilty plea to charges involving a $1.7 million mortgage fraud scheme. Government lawyers urged state justice Abraham Gerges to sentence Constant to time served while awaiting trial, about 10 months; he would then be deported under a standing deportation order. "I have no fear to be deported to Haiti," Constant told the justice at the hearing.

ICE officials confirmed on May 11 that they raided five homes on the East End of Long Island in New York over the week of May 7, arresting 18 people who they said lacked immigration status. Some of those arrested were named on administrative warrants for having failed to comply with prior removal orders; others were found in the raided homes and were determined to lack immigration status. Southampton Village police provided two marked cars as ICE agents raided two houses in the village at 5:30 AM (it was not clear what day the operation took place).