A timeline of the UK’s history with the Chagos Islands | Chagos Islands

1783

The primary inhabitants arrive on the Chagos Islands: enslaved Africans, who’re put to work on coconut plantations, producing copra, created by the French. Later, after their emancipation, indentured Indians arrive.

1814

After Napoleon’s abdication and exile through the Napoleonic wars, Britain formally takes possession of the Chagos Islands and close by Mauritius from France.

1965

The Chagos Islands change into the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT) amid discussions with Mauritius over independence, and with the UK having agreed with the US to create a army base on one of many islands, Diego Garcia.

1968

Mauritius is granted independence however the UK retains management of the BIOT.

1967-1973

Your entire inhabitants of the Chagos Islands are pressured to depart their houses, with most shifting to the primary island of Mauritius or to Seychelles, hundreds of kilometres away. Human Rights Watch has referred to as the forcible displacement an “appalling colonial crime” and a criminal offense in opposition to humanity.

1982

The UK authorities agrees to pay £4m right into a belief fund for the Chagossians, arrange beneath a Mauritian statute.

2000

The UK excessive courtroom finds the expulsion of the Chagossians to be illegal.

2008

The Home of Lords, then the UK’s highest courtroom, decides in opposition to the correct of return for Chagossians, overturning a sequence of selections by judges in decrease British courts that had discovered their exile to be illegal.

2010

A US diplomatic cable dated Could 2009, disclosed by WikiLeaks, reveals {that a} UK Overseas Workplace official had advised the US {that a} resolution to arrange a “marine protected space” (MPA) would “put paid to resettlement claims of the archipelago’s former residents”.

2015

A UN tribunal guidelines that Britain acted illegally in the way in which it created a marine protected space (MPA) within the Chagos Islands, saying it needed to didn’t seek the advice of Mauritius and illegally disadvantaged it of fishing rights.

2016

The UK authorities declares a £40m assist bundle to help and compensate Chagossians residing within the UK, however nonetheless refuses to allow them to return house.

2019

In an advisory opinion, the UN’s highest courtroom, the worldwide courtroom of justice, guidelines that continued British occupation of the distant Indian Ocean archipelago is unlawful and orders the UK at hand it again to Mauritius “as quickly as potential”.

The UN normal meeting overwhelmingly backs a movement condemning Britain’s occupation of the islands. The movement units a six-month deadline for Britain to withdraw and for the islands to be reunified with Mauritius, however the UK doesn’t comply.

2021

The UN’s particular worldwide maritime courtroom rejects the UK’s declare to sovereignty over the Chagos Islands, and the prime minister of Mauritius urges it to finish its “illegal occupation”.

2021

A bunch of Tamil asylum seekers fleeing Sri Lanka in a fishing boat are rescued and brought to Diego Garcia. They continue to be there in what they’ve described as horrific, prison-like circumstances. Stories of tried suicides and self-harm have been rife.

2022

The UK declares that it has agreed to open negotiations with Mauritius over the long run handover of the Chagos Islands.

2024

The UK agrees at hand over the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, ending years of bitter dispute over Britain’s final African colony, though it is going to retain management over the army base on Diego Garcia, which it operates collectively with the US.