By: Leela Xie
The Chagos Islands, an Indian Ocean archipelago, were taken over in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The United Kingdom evacuated the island’s residents to make way for a military airbase run in partnership with the United States. The Chagos Islands national team is currently seeking to maintain the story of their forefathers by representing a long-lost country over 6,000 kilometers distant.
The first Chagos Islands team was created in Crawley, which is home to the vast majority of the UK’s 3,000 Chagossian inhabitants, about two decades ago. The team joined the NF-Board, an international organization for national football teams who are not members of FIFA (the worldwide governing body of association football, beach football, and futsal). It was founded in 1904 to coordinate international competition among the national organizations of Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland.
For a period, the Chagos Islands FC (football club) competed in a local league, as well as friendly matches against places like Raetia (a Roman Empire province in central Europe) and Sealand, an unrecognized micronation that claims HM Fort Roughs (also known as Roughs Tower), an offshore platform in the North Sea approximately twelve kilometers off the coast of Suffolk, as its territory. They finally collapsed owing to ongoing financial difficulties.
Sabrina Jean, on the other hand, founded the Chagos Football Association in 2014. The Chagos Islands national football team is a football team from the Indian Ocean that represents the Chagos Archipelago.
Former Chagos Island residents often avoid discussing their childhoods. “They’d attempt to avoid explaining because they were terrified,” says Joseph, the Chagos Islands national team goalie. “I’d go with my grandmother to watch it. Tears streamed down her cheeks as she told me. I only wanted to know what had occurred.”
When Mauritius obtained independence in 1968, the United Kingdom insisted on keeping control of the Chagos Islands. Following that, the local population was evacuated to the Seychelles, Mauritius, or the United Kingdom. Many ended up in poverty and discrimination.
The United Nations’ top court concluded that the United Kingdom’s control of the islands is unlawful in a unanimous but non-binding judgement, but the United Kingdom has refused to hand up sovereignty to Mauritius. The islands will be repatriated once they are no longer needed for defense purposes, according to reports.