The U.K. has agreed to hand sovereignty of the long-contested Chagos Islands, an archipelago of more than 60 islands in the Indian Ocean, to Mauritius, in a deal to secure the future of a strategically important U.

Activists have decried a deal that the UK will cede sovereignty of the Chagos Archipelago to Mauritius with the exception of Diego Garcia.

In the early 1970s, Britain evicted almost 2,000 residents to Mauritius and the Seychelles to make way for an airbase on Diego Garcia, the largest island, which it had leased to the United States in 1966.