Depopulation of Diego Garcia

The depopulation of Chagossians from the Chagos Archipelago, was the compelled expulsion of the inhabitants of the island of Diego Garcia and the other islands of the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT) by the United Kingdom, at the request of the United States, beginning in 1968 and concluding on 27 April 1973 with the evacuation of Peros Banhos atoll. The people, known at the time as the Ilois, are today known as Chagos Islanders or Chagossians.

Some Chagossians and human rights advocates have said that the Chagossian right of occupation was violated by the British Foreign Office as a result of the 1966 agreement between the British and American governments to provide an unpopulated island for a U.S. military base, and that additional compensation and a right of return be provided.

Legal action to claim compensation and the right of abode in the Chagos began in April 1973 when 280 islanders, represented by a Mauritian attorney, petitioned the government of Mauritius to distribute the £650,000 compensation provided in 1972 by the British government to the Mauritian government for distribution. It was not distributed until 1977. Various petitions and lawsuits have been ongoing since that time. The British government has consistently denied any illegalities in the expulsion.

The Chagos Archipelago was uninhabited when first visited by European explorers, and remained that way until the French successfully established a small colony on the island of Diego Garcia, composed of 50–60 men and "a complement of slaves". The slaves came from what are now Mozambique and Madagascar via Mauritius. Thus, the original Chagossians were a mixture of the Bantu and Austronesian peoples.

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