Chagos Archipelago

Chagos Archipelago, also Oil Islands, group of small islands, constituting the British Indian Ocean Territory (a dependency of Great Britain), in the central Indian Ocean, south of India. The islands were administered from Mauritius until organized as the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT) in 1965. In the 1970s, Diego Garcia, an atoll at the southern end of the group, became the site of a United States communications centre and naval base. The total land area of the islands is about 60 sq km (23 sq mi).

The islands have had no permanent civilian inhabitants since 1968, when the British government forcibly removed the islanders, the Ilois, in order to make way for the US military use of the Chagos. Since then, most of the Ilois have been living in exile in Mauritius. However, in a case brought by the islanders against the British government, a High Court judge in November 2000 decided that the government had acted illegally in removing them. The Ilois are demanding the right to return to the Chagos—however, the US government may not allow this.