Diego Garcia

Diego Garcia Latest News

Iran recently fired two ballistic missiles toward the joint U.S.-U.K. military base at Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean.

About Diego Garcia

• Location: It is a coral atoll located in the central Indian Ocean.
• It is the largest and southernmost member of the Chagos Archipelago.
• It is part of the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT) and accounts for more than half the land area.
• It was discovered by the Portuguese in the early 16th century, it was for most of its history a dependency of Mauritius. 
• In 1965 it was separated from Mauritius as part of the newly created BIOT. 
• In 1966, the UK leased Diego Garcia to the US to create an air and naval base. For constructing the defence installation, the inhabitants of the island were forcibly removed.
• Diego Garcia is the United States’ major geostrategic and logistics support base in the Indian Ocean. 
• A non-binding 2019 UN General Assembly vote demanded that Britain end its “colonial administration” of the Chagos Archipelago and that it be returned to Mauritius.

Source: TH

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