Still, many Chagossians cannot gain British citizenship either. Exiles are entitled to it, but their children are only if both parents are from the island and married. Augustin, 52, received her British passport in 2002, saving up for two years – and selling her fridge – in order to be able to pay for her plane ticket. On arrival, she spent eight days sleeping in Gatwick airport along with the few dozen other Chagossians she had travelled with, all of whom had a UK passport but nowhere to go and no access to funds. They were eventually given accommodation in local hotels and B&Bs, and £20 to live on a week. Struggling to find a job with no fixed address, Augustin, who had left her husband and four children, aged 3-11, at home in Mauritius, found work as a cleaner in Gatwick airport, working non-stop for eight months until she could afford their airfares and visas – the latter of which have cost her £2,000 every two years since. “They took our island, they destroyed our lives, they destroyed everything… but when we came here, we were shocked that the Government did nothing for us,” Augustin says. “We’re fighting for ourselves.”

“Successive UK governments have expressed sincere regret about the manner in which Chagossians were removed from BIOT [British Indian Overseas Territories] in the late Sixties and early Seventies and we are currently delivering a £40million support package to Chagossians over a 10-year period,” the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCO) said this week. On what that fund is spent, Augustin says she is unsure, as all proposals for projects – including their own community centre, where elderly natives could learn English – have been rejected.

The only evidence of its use thus far has been via annual boat trips to Chagos (pre-Covid) for around 20 people at a time. For the likes of Augustin, that visit at the age of 40 was her first to the land her family had spent decades reminiscing about. Before, “they were just stories,” she reflects. “But when I was on the island I could really understand how beautiful it is, peaceful, rich – everything my grandma told me about was there… This is where my life should be.” Her son also made the trip, returning in tears “desperate to go back and live there… he couldn’t believe it”.

More surprising for Frankie Bontemps, who travelled to Chagos with the BIOT Citizens group for the first time in 2011, was that instead of the uninhabited island he was expecting, he found a cinema, swimming pool and gym in downtown Chagogossia – all built for the US soldiers. Bontemps, who works as a decontamination technician at Crawley hospital, describes this week’s events as a “betrayal”; the island belongs to Chagossians like him and his family, who are desperate to live in the country they feel is theirs for the first time. “Next time,” the 52-year-old says, “I would take all my stuff and go back [for good].”