Chagos islanders cannot return home, says Supreme Court

Former residents of the Chagos Islands who were forcibly removed from their homeland more than 40 years ago have lost their legal challenge to return. 

Families left the Indian Ocean islands in the 1960s and 70s to make way for a US Air Force base on Diego Garcia, the largest of the group of islands. An Immigration Order preventing anyone from going back was issued in 1971.


The Supreme Court - UK's highest court - upheld a 2008 House of Lords ruling that the exiles could not return.

Olivier Bancoult, the Chagossian leader who has been fighting in the courts on behalf of the islanders, had argued that decision should be set aside.