{"id":41644,"date":"2022-02-13T02:13:50","date_gmt":"2022-02-12T17:13:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2022\/feb\/12\/exiled-chagos-islanders-return-uk-disputed-archipelago-mauritius"},"modified":"2022-02-13T02:13:50","modified_gmt":"2022-02-12T17:13:50","slug":"exiled-chagos-islanders-bask-in-return-as-pilgrims-to-abandoned-place","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=41644","title":{"rendered":"Exiled Chagos Islanders bask in return \u2018as pilgrims to abandoned place\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Fifty years after the UK forcibly deported them, five Chagossians have visited the disputed archipelago with Mauritius\u2019s help<\/p>\n<p>Returning to their birthplace after decades of enforced exile, five Chagossians leapt from a motor launch on to the palm-shaded beach of Peros Banhos atoll on Saturday afternoon, kissed the sand and stood \u2013 hands joined together \u2013 in prayer.<\/p>\n<p>For Olivier Bancoult, Lisbey Elyse, Marie Suzelle Baptiste, Rosemonde Bertin and Marcel Humbert, it was the moment they had long anticipated \u2013 the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2022\/feb\/08\/mauritian-ship-takes-scientific-team-to-contested-chagos-islands\" title=\"\">first time they could step ashore <\/a>without close close monitoring by British officials. It is 50 years since they were forcibly deported to Mauritius by the UK, which cleared the archipelago of its entire population to make way for a US military base on the island of Diego Garcia.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2022\/feb\/12\/exiled-chagos-islanders-return-uk-disputed-archipelago-mauritius\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Fifty years after the UK forcibly deported them, five Chagossians have visited the disputed archipelago with Mauritius\u2019s helpReturning to their birthplace after decades of enforced exile, five Chagossians leapt from a motor launch on to the palm-shaded&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2905,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[401,41,753,53,62,755,61,52,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41644","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-africa","category-asia-pacific","category-chagos-islands","category-human-rights","category-india","category-mauritius","category-south-and-central-asia","category-uk-news","category-world-news"],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41644","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2905"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=41644"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41644\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41645,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41644\/revisions\/41645"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=41644"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=41644"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=41644"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}