Chagos Archipelago

Island group in the Indian Ocean; area 60 sq km/23 sq mi. Formerly a dependency of Mauritius, it now forms the British Indian Ocean Territory. The chief island is Diego Garcia, from which several thousand inhabitants were forcibly removed, primarily to Mauritius, between 1967 and 1973 to make way for a US-British strategic base. In November 2000, the British High Court ruled that the British government should return the islanders to their homes.