During an audience with refugees from Chagos, the Indian Ocean archipelago that is home to the vital U.S.-U.K. military facility, on Saturday, Pope Leo XIV firmly underlined the right of people to return to their homes after an unfair exile.
The first American pope in history said that no one could drive them into exile.
Leo spoke with a group of perhaps 15 Chagos refugees, some 2,000 of whom had been forced from their homes by Britain in the 1960s and 1970s so that the US could establish a bomber and naval station on Diego Garcia, the largest of the islands.
For years, displaced islanders battled for their right to return home in British courts. Britain and Mauritius inked a pact in May that gives Mauritius sovereignty over the islands and permits relocation while maintaining the base’s future.
Leo expressed his happiness to the refugees, telling them that the pact was a major win in their protracted fight to right a serious injustice. He specifically commended the Chagossian women for their nonviolently claiming their right to return home.
Leo stated in French that the renewed possibility of your going back to your home archipelago is a positive indication and a potent signal on the global scene. No one has the right to drive any people into exile, and the powerful must respect all peoples, no matter how little or weak, in their identity and rights, especially the right to reside on their territory.
Leo promised the assistance of the local Catholic Church and expressed his hope that Mauritius’ government would make a commitment to guaranteeing their return.
The Chagos Islands, one of the last surviving parts of the British Empire, have been governed by the United Kingdom since 1814. Three years prior to Mauritius’s independence, in 1965, Britain divided the islands from the previous British territory.
In order to lease back the base for a minimum of 99 years, the U.K. agreed in May to pay Mauritius an average of 101 million pounds ($136 million) annually. It declares that Mauritius is free to carry out a resettlement scheme on the islands other than Diego Garcia and creates a trust fund for the benefit of the Chagossians.
Resettlement is not a requirement of the agreement, though, and several displaced islanders worry that once Mauritius seizes power, it will be much more difficult to return to their homeland.
International attorney Philippe Sands, who has long supported the Chagossians’ right to return home and represented Mauritius in the conflict, said the pope’s remarks were crucial. He saw that Leo seemed to be the driving force behind the small, private audience that was first anticipated to be a part of a larger gathering.
His Holiness told The Associated Press following the audience that his remarks provided unambiguous support for the immediate repatriation of Chagossians to the islands from which they were expelled and sent the strongest possible message to the governments of the United States, Britain, and Mauritius that the Vatican expects the Chagossians to be able to return and start over.
The head of the Chagossian group, Louis Olivier Bancoult, who has been fighting for the right to return home for more than 40 years, said the meeting was organized at the last minute by the bishop in Port Louis, Mauritius.
Speaking to the AP in a cafe close to the Vatican, he expressed his amazement that he had met with representatives of the U.S. Embassy in Port Louis for the first time since the pact was signed. In the capital, he was also greeted by officials from the British high commission.
“It’s a miracle for me,” he stated. The United States, the United Kingdom, and now the pope. Next up, who?
In order for Chagossians who have been forcibly deported, like himself, to return home, preparations, including the construction of infrastructure on the islands, must now start.
The British designated Bancoult a contract laborer with no right of permanent residence when he was four years old, according to Sands, and his family was forcibly removed from their home on the island of Peros Banhos.
Bancoult replied, “Now we have the blessing of God,” holding up a statue of the Madonna that he had brought to Leo for blessing before taking it to Chagos.
Pope Francis spoke briefly with a group of Chagossians during a public audience at the Vatican in 2023 and traveled to Mauritius in 2019. In 2019, when returning home from Mauritius, Francis reminded reporters that Britain ought to follow the United Nations’ directive and give the islands back to Mauritius.
