Human Rights Watch said on Friday the UK government's deal to hand over the Chagos Islands to Mauritius could "entrench" the exile of Chagossians from the archipelago's biggest island.
While the agreement "may result in some Chagossians returning to some islands... it also appears to entrench their exile from Diego Garcia, the largest island," said Clive Baldwin of the New York-based rights group.
The group described the forcible displacement of the "entire Chagossian indigenous people, mostly to Mauritius, for a US military base on the island of Diego Garcia" as an "ongoing colonial crime against humanity".
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Thursday announced an agreement to give the remote Indian Ocean archipelago to Mauritius in exchange for control of a crucial US-UK military base on Diego Garcia island.
The deal, first touted in autumn last year, will see Britain pay its former colony £101 million ($136 million) annually for 99 years to lease the facility, Starmer said.
As part of the agreement, Mauritius will be able to resettle Chagossian islanders, expelled from the archipelago by Britain in the 1960s, to all of its over 50 islands, apart from Diego Garcia.
Under the deal, the British government will set up a £40-million ($54 million) trust fund for the 10,000-strong Chagossian diaspora.
The agreement was announced with a slight delay after a last-minute injunction was granted to Chagos Islands-born British national Bertrice Pompe.
In court documents Pompe laid out concerns that under the deal Mauritius would be responsible for resettling the islands.
She said Chagossians had suffered decades of "discrimination" at the hands of Mauritius, "including in relation to distribution of financial support intended for Chagossians", according to the court documents.
Pompe said she had been living in exile since being "forcibly removed from the Chagos Islands by the British authorities between 1967 and 1973".
Of the around 2,000 Chagos inhabitants who were expelled by the UK, many ended up in destitution in Mauritius, she said.
Britain retained controlled of the Chagos Islands after Mauritius gained independence in the 1960s -- evicting thousands of Chagos islanders to allow the US to build the strategic military base.
The islanders have since then mounted several legal claims for compensation in British courts, while Mauritius brought its claims over the islands to international courts.
