Pope Leo XIV has taken a strong stance and backed exiled refugees from Chagos, the Indian Ocean archipelago where the U.S./U.K. military base, Diego Garcia, lies.

Meeting with a delegation of refugees from the islands, 2,000 of whom were evicted by Britain in the 1960s and 1970s, the Pope insisted on the right of the Chagossian people to return to their homes.

He said: ‘The renewed prospect of your return to your native archipelago is an encouraging sign and a powerful symbol on the international stage: all peoples, even the smallest and weakest, must be respected by the powerful in their identity and rights, in particular the right to live on their land; and no one can force them into exile.’

He also praised a recent U.K.-Mauritius treaty over the archipelago’s future, which displaced

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