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.

The U.K. has agreed 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 to secure the future of a strategically important U.

After years of legal wrangling and negotiations, Britain said it would surrender sovereignty of the archipelago in the Indian Ocean.