Return of Chagos Archipelago
October 9 , 2024
45 days
194
- The United Kingdom ceded sovereignty of the strategically important Chagos Islands to Mauritius.
- The UK has long controlled Chagos and the Diego Garcia military base located there, jointly operating it with the United States.
- The Chagos archipelago, comprising 58 islands, lies roughly 500 km to the south of the Maldives archipelago in the Indian Ocean.
- In 1814, France ceded the islands to the British.
- In 1965, the UK constituted the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT), of which the Chagos Islands were a central part.
- A few other BIOT islands were later ceded to the Seychelles in 1976 after it gained independence from Britain.
- Chagos was attached to Mauritius, another British colony in the Indian Ocean, for administrative purposes.
- But when Mauritius gained the independence in 1968, Chagos remained with Britain.
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