Mauritius

Mauritius is a stable and prosperous Indian Ocean archipelago.

Once dependent on sugar exports, the island has built up a strong outsourcing and financial services sector, as well as an important tourism industry, and now boasts one of Africa’s highest per capita incomes.

In the 1960s, hundreds of inhabitants of the Chagos Islands, over which Mauritius claimed sovereignty, were deported to make way for a US military base on the island of Diego Garcia.

The islands had been administered as part of Mauritius from the 18th Century onwards. In 1965, shortly before Mauritian independence the UK separated them along with Aldabra, Farquhar and Desroches in the Seychelles to form the British Indian Ocean Territory.

The latter three islands were returned to Seychelles in 1976 on its independence.

In 2024, after years of negotiations, the UK announced it would hand sovereignty of the Chagos Islands back to Mauritius.

This included the tropical atoll of Diego Garcia, used by the US government as a military base for its navy ships and long-range bomber aircraft.

The US-UK base remains on Diego Garcia – this was a key factor enabling the deal to go forward at a time of growing geopolitical rivalries in the region between Western countries, India, and China.

REPUBLIC OF MAURITIUS: FACTS

Exit mobile version