The UK has agreed to hand over the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, ending years of bitter dispute over Britain’s last African colony.

The UK expelled the Chagossians in the 1960s and 1970s, in what has been described as a crime against humanity, when it retained possession of what it called the British Indian Ocean Territory, or BIOT, after Mauritius gained independence in 1968.

The agreement follows rounds of negotiations that began in 2022 after Mauritian arguments for sovereignty were recognised by the international court of justice (ICJ), the UN general assembly and the international tribunal of the law of the sea (Itlos) in 2019 and 2021.

Britain was found to have unlawfully separated the Chagos Islands from Mauritius before granting independence in 1968. The UK initially defied UN votes and court judgments demanding it return the islands, emphasising that the ICJ ruling was only an “advisory opinion”.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/oct/03/britain-to-return-chagos-islands-to-mauritius-ending-years-of-dispute

This includes the tropical atoll of Diego Garcia, used by the US government as a military base for its navy ships and long-range bomber aircraft.

The announcement, made in a joint statement by the British and Mauritian Prime Ministers on Thursday, ends decades of often fractious negotiations between the two countries over the islands.

The US-UK base will remain on Diego Garcia – a key factor enabling the deal to go forward at a time of growing geopolitical rivalries in the region between Western countries, India, and China.

The deal is still subject to finalisation of a treaty but both sides have vowed to complete this as quickly as possible.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c98ynejg4l5o