More than half a century ago, the British and the Americans established the Diego Garcia military base, breaking international law in the process. The locals were forcibly exiled. But now, after decades of court battles, the people who once called the Chagos Archipelago home are closer to returning than ever before.

More than half a century ago, the British and the Americans established the Diego Garcia military base, breaking international law in the process. The locals were forcibly exiled. But now, after decades of court battles, the people who once called the Chagos Archipelago home are closer to returning than ever before.

    • livusOP
      3•1 year ago

      I don’t really understand your comment but here is a part about friends and how they stuck together:

      When we arrived at the airport, nobody wanted us," she says. The group slept in the arrivals hall for eight days, she says, before they were finally taken to Crawley, which is located directly behind the Gatwick runway.
      “They destroyed our families, our culture, our lives, but they don’t have anything to give us here in England either.”

      Mylene spent her first six months there in the Hotel Europa and started working at the airport as a cleaner. After a year and a half, she had managed to save up enough money to bring her children over as well, and several years after that, her parents followed. Today, around 3,000 Chagossians live in the non-descript town in West Sussex.

      “It was a long fight. It still is,” says Mylene. “They have destroyed our families, our culture, our lives. And here, they have nothing for us either.” Once, she applied for a grant from the community center, but was rejected. On another occasion, she asked for a small piece of property to establish a cemetery, so that the aging Chagossians, who were now beginning to reach the ends of their lives far away from their homeland, could at least be buried together. That application, too, was rejected.