Paradise lost
Second-generation Chagossians José Jacques and Christine Cateaux talk to
Clare O’Driscoll about a people ripped away from their land
HOW WOULD IT FEEL to take a short essential trip to another country, only to learn that you could never return home? To know that the place where you’d built a house and lived peacefully was now out of bounds? How would it feel to instead spend your life in a place where there is no welcome? José Jacques was born on the island of Mauritius, but that was not his home. His mother, grandmother and great-grandmother before her lived on Diego Garcia, the largest island in the Chagos Archipelago. Because there were no surgeries or hospitals there, José’s mother – like many Diego Garcians – occasionally travelled to Mauritius. Normally, after a short stay, she would return home to Chagos. However, one trip would be different.
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