♦ The United Kingdom signed an agreement on 22 May 2025, handing sovereignty over the contested and strategically located Chagos Islands to Mauritius.

♦ The move, the British government said, ensures the future of a US-UK military base that is vital to British security.

♦ Under the agreement, the United Kingdom will pay Mauritius 136 million dollars per year to lease back the base for at least 99 years.

♦ The Indian Ocean archipelago is home to a strategically important naval and bomber base on the largest of the islands, Diego Garcia.

♦ The Chagos Islands, officially known as the British Indian Ocean Territory, are located in the Indian Ocean about 9,332 km south-east of the UK.

♦ The Chagos Archipelago – a group of seven atolls with a population of just over four thousand, was separated from Mauritius in 1965, when Mauritius was still a British colony.

♦ Britain purchased the islands for three million pound but Mauritius has argued that it was illegally forced to give them away as part of a deal to gain independence from Britain.

♦ In the late 1960s, Britain invited the US to build a military base on Diego Garcia, the largest of the Chagos Islands, removing thousands of people from their homes.