Chagossian exiles celebrate emotional return as UK tries to justify control

World sympathy and legal balance shifting to Mauritian claim to islands

Standing in the hospital room where she gave birth to her first child, Rosemonde Bertin looked around in despair. The roof had collapsed, trees grew through the floor and a rusting, enamelled bedpan lay half concealed by ferns.

I had my baby here," Bertin said. He was born in 1972." That was shortly before everyone on Salomon atoll was forcibly deported by the British to Mauritius and Seychelles.