100 Exiled Islanders Set Off for Lost Homeland
People expelled by Britain from the Chagos islands during the Cold War to make way for a U.S. base set sail to visit their homeland.
Britain last year agreed to allow 100 former inhabitants to make the 12-day visit to the Indian Ocean archipelago. Thousands of people, wearing T-shirts saying “Back to Paradise,” thronged Mauritius’ Port Louis harbor to see them off.
Britain moved 2,000 Chagos residents to Mauritius and Seychelles in the 1960s and 1970s to pave the way for the U.S. base on Diego Garcia, one of the islands.
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