Hidden History: The Chagossians Removed to Make Way for Diego Garcia

October 25, 2026

History

3 Minutes

Before Diego Garcia became a military base, Chagossian families lived across the Chagos Archipelago. Between the late 1960s and early 1970s, Britain forcibly removed roughly two thousand people from the islands to make way for a UK–U.S. military facility. The arrangement was negotiated quietly while Mauritius moved toward independence.

This is sometimes told as a diplomatic dispute over a remote atoll. It is also a history of people separated from home, whose removal was described in official language as if the islands had been empty.

Story ten in Hidden History. Figures vary by source; this account uses approximate totals and distinguishes court findings from political claims.

Map showing the Chagos Archipelago and Diego Garcia in relation to Mauritius, via Courrier International

An archipelago detached before independence

In 1965, Britain separated the Chagos Archipelago from Mauritius, then a British colony, and created the British Indian Ocean Territory. Mauritius became independent in 1968 without the islands. The U.S. and British governments had agreed to establish a military facility on Diego Garcia, the largest island; the archipelago’s residents stood in the way of a plan requiring the base to be uninhabited.

Chagossians were pressured to leave and access to the islands was restricted. Many were taken to Mauritius or Seychelles, where families faced poverty and difficult resettlement. Official correspondence used the word “migrants” and at times denied the existence of a permanent population. The people who lived there were not an abstract issue: many worked on coconut plantations and had deep family ties to the islands.

In 2019, the International Court of Justice issued an advisory opinion that Mauritius’s decolonization had not been lawfully completed when the Chagos Islands were separated. The court concluded that Britain’s administration should end as rapidly as possible. An advisory opinion is not a binding judgment between two states, but it became an important legal reference in subsequent United Nations action.

A base, a treaty and an unfinished return

In 2025, Britain and Mauritius signed an agreement transferring sovereignty of the archipelago to Mauritius while allowing the UK to continue operating the Diego Garcia base under a long-term arrangement. The treaty created a new political framework, but it did not erase decades of displacement or end debate among Chagossians about return, representation and compensation.

Why “empty island” language matters

The decision to remove residents depended on describing inhabited islands as if their population were temporary or insignificant. That language made a community disappear on paper before it was displaced in reality.

The 2025 agreement permits Mauritius to pursue resettlement on islands other than Diego Garcia, but does not itself guarantee that every displaced family can return. Some Chagossians have welcomed the transfer of sovereignty; others have criticized their exclusion from negotiations or worry about what the new arrangement means for their future. Their views are not interchangeable.

A final thought

A military base can be marked on a map with a clean border. A forced departure is harder to contain. It travels through family memory, language, lost graves and the question of where home is allowed to be.

The Chagos story asks us to look at the people hidden behind strategic phrases. Decolonization and security are not complete explanations when those who lived on the islands are still asking what justice and return should mean.