On an icy Valentine’s Day evening this year, a group of people trickled into a deserted-looking community center in the depths of London’s commuter belt to hear allegations of crimes against humanity. Speakers from Human Rights Watch were presenting a report detailing breaches of international law by the UK. The audience listened politely, interrupting only with the occasional hacking cough from an elderly person or squawk from a baby. It was a story they knew well, because it was their own.

The speakers recounted how, beginning in 1968, the people of Britain’s last remaining African colony, the Chagos Archipelago, in the Indian Ocean due south of Mumbai and east of Dar es Salaam, were forcibly removed from their homes and scattered around the world. Many ended up where everyone was sitting now, in the English town of Crawley.