Chagos Islanders have fought a long and determined campaign for right to return

Hopes occasionally soared only to be dashed as legal challenges came and went until a critical judgment in 2019

The view from the decaying jetty on the atoll of Peros Banhos takes in a vast lagoon surrounded by palm trees and sun-bleached beaches. From there, more than 50 years ago, some of the last Chagos Islanders were forcibly deported by British colonial administrators.

Their pet dogs, several of which swam out to departing boats, were rounded up; the animals were shot or gassed. Clearance of about 2,000 people from the remote but strategically important archipelago in the middle of the Indian Ocean was complete by 1973.