Pope Leo XIV has taken a strong stance and backed exiled refugees from Chagos, the Indian Ocean archipelago where the U.S./U.K. military base, Diego Garcia, lies.
Meeting with a delegation of refugees from the islands, 2,000 of whom were evicted by Britain in the 1960s and 1970s, the Pope insisted on the right of the Chagossian people to return to their homes.
He said: ‘The renewed prospect of your return to your native archipelago is an encouraging sign and a powerful symbol on the international stage: all peoples, even the smallest and weakest, must be respected by the powerful in their identity and rights, in particular the right to live on their land; and no one can force them into exile.’
He also praised a recent U.K.-Mauritius treaty over the archipelago’s future, which displaced islanders have been fighting for over the last few decades.
In May, Britain and Mauritius signed a treaty to hand sovereignty over the islands to Mauritius while still ensuring the future of the base.
He said he hoped that Mauritian authorities would commit to ensuring their return, and pledged the help of the local Catholic Church.
Under the agreement, the U.K. would pay Mauritius an average of £101 million each year to lease the base for at least 99 years.
The money would establish a trust fund to benefit the Chagossians and would let Mauritius implement a program of resettlement on the islands other than Diego Garcia.
But the programme wouldn’t require residents to resettle, worrying some displaced islanders that it will be difficult to return after Mauritius takes control.
Philippe Sands, the international lawyer who has represented the Chagos people and long championed their right to go home, said the pope’s words were important.
‘The words spoken by His Holiness offered clear support for the urgent return of Chagossians to the islands from which they were deported and sent the clearest possible signal to the governments of Britain, United States and Mauritius that the Vatican expects the Chagossians to be able to return and remake their lives,’ he told The Associated Press.
Mauritius had long contested Britain’s claim to the archipelago, and the United Nations and its top court had urged Britain to return the Chagos to Mauritius, around 1,250 miles southwest of the islands.
In a non-binding 2019 opinion, the International Court of Justice ruled that the U.K. had unlawfully carved up Mauritius when it agreed to end colonial rule in the late 1960s.
Pope Francis visited Mauritius in 2019 and met with a group of Chagossians in the Vatican in 2023.
Francis told reporters en route home from Mauritius in 2019 that Britain should obey the U.N. and return the islands to Mauritius.
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