Chagos Islanders fear loss of identity as birth certificates altered to remove disputed homeland

British Indian Ocean Territory islanders gather in Parliament Square in London in September 2021 during scrutiny of the nationality and borders bill. Photograph: Vuk Valcic/Alamy

Exiled islanders from the disputed British-owned Chagos Islands are finding their heritage has been removed from new identity documents in an apparent move by Mauritius to stake its claim to the territory.

British ownership of the Chagos Islands has long been challenged by Mauritius, where most islanders were shipped in the 1960s after being evicted from their Indian Ocean homeland to make way for a US military base on Diego Garcia, the largest island.