Pope Leo calls Chagossian exile a ‘grave injustice’

On 23 August 2025, Pope Leo XIV received a delegation of Chagossian refugees in the Vatican. They had travelled from Port Louis, Mauritius, and represented some 2,000 islanders who were removed in the late 1960s and early 1970s so that the United States and Britain could construct a vast military base on Diego Garcia.

The Holy Father praised the “determination of the Chagossian people, particularly that of the women, in their peaceful struggle for their rights” and said he was “delighted” at the 22 May 2025 treaty signed by London and Port Louis. He called it a “significant victory” in a long battle to “repair a grave injustice.”

In French, he went further: “The renewed prospect of your return to your native archipelago is an encouraging sign and a powerful symbol on the international stage: all peoples, even the smallest and weakest, must be respected by the powerful in their identity and rights, in particular the right to live on their land; and no one can force them into exile.”

However, the treaty is not without controversy, even among Chagossians. Some do not support Mauritian sovereignty and instead wish to affirm their British citizenship and connection with the UK.

This is not the first time a pope has addressed the issue. Pope Francis raised it during his 2019 visit to Mauritius and again when he welcomed Chagossians to the Vatican in 2023. He called on Britain to follow international law and honour their right to return. Leo has followed in that line, insisting that dialogue and law must prevail.

The Chagos Islands were seized from France in 1814 under the Treaty of Paris. In 1965, amid Cold War manoeuvring, London detached the archipelago from Mauritius to form the British Indian Ocean Territory. By 1971 the inhabitants were removed, with some reports describing them as “manpower” to be shipped off, so that the largest island of the Chagos Archipelago, Diego Garcia, could host a strategic American bomber base. Documents later revealed that the island was considered for use as a detention site for terror suspects during the Blair years, and allegations persist of CIA “black site” flights passing through.

Some in Westminster remain unmoved by the Pope’s comments. Mark François, the Conservative MP and Shadow Armed Forces Minister, told The Telegraph: “With great respect to the Holy Father, as I understand it the Vatican are not proposing to cover the £35bn cost to rent back islands and a vital strategic base, which already belong to us in the first place.”

The Holy See Press Office Bulletin has not, at the time of writing, published an official full transcript of the audience, which is unusual. There is not even a complete text, and all the quotations cited are drawn from reports released by Vatican Media.

For the Chagossians present, this meeting with His Holiness offered encouragement from the highest moral authority, yet the path home remains uncertain. Treaties may shift paper sovereignty, but the US-UK base endures. With Conservative figures bristling at the Pope’s intervention, for many Britons Diego Garcia is not a question of justice but of national security. Holding all this together, the Pope’s words cut through with clarity: “No people should be forced into exile."

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Photo credit: Vatican Media

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