Chagos Islands: UK should pay reparations, says Human Rights Watch

Britain should pay reparations to people removed from the Chagos

Islands, a British territory in the Indian Ocean, a human rights group has said.

Human Rights Watch also called on Britain to allow Chagossians to return to the islands, from which more than 1,000 people were forced to leave in the 1960s and 1970s.

The group accused the UK of “committing an appalling colonial crime”.

The Foreign Office said it rejected this characterisation.

After a military base leased to the United States was established in 1966 on Diego Garcia, the largest of the 60 small islands of the Chagos Archipelago, the indigenous inhabitants were evicted from their homes. Chagossians have fought to return to their homes ever since..