Islanders who were forced to leave their remote Indian Ocean home to make way for a U.S. military base half a century ago protested outside the U.K.

Strategically located between East Africa and Southeast Asia, Diego Garcia serves as a surveillance centre for the Middle East. It was critical to air operations during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Britain struck a deal allowing it to keeping control of a strategically important UK-US military base in the Indian Ocean for another century, while ceding sovereignty over the Chagos Islands to Mauritius.

Britain is giving up sovereignty of a remote group of islands in return for securing the long-term future of a strategically important military base.The UK Government said it has reached a political agreement with Mauritius over the Chagos Islands,

LONDON (AP) — The British government agreed Thursday to hand sovereignty of the long-contested Chagos Islands, an archipelago of more than 60 islands in the Indian Ocean, to Mauritius, in a deal that secures the future of a strategically important U.K.-U.S. military base.

The British government announced last week that it is handing the Chagos Islands to Mauritius under an agreement that will see the American naval and bomber base stay on one of the islands, Diego Garcia.