Liseby Elysé

Who is Liseby Elysé?

Liseby Elysé, born Liseby Bertrand on 24 July 1953 on Île du Coin in the Peros Banhos atoll of the Chagos Archipelago, is a Chagossian activist known worldwide for her testimony before the International Court of Justice. On 27 April 1973 she was forcibly expelled from her home by the British administration together with the roughly four hundred remaining inhabitants of Peros Banhos, while pregnant with her first child; she suffered a miscarriage shortly after arriving in exile. Decades later, on 3 September 2018, her testimony was presented before the International Court of Justice in The Hague during the advisory-opinion proceedings brought by Mauritius against the United Kingdom over sovereignty of the Chagos Archipelago. Her account of the expulsion became one of the defining human moments of the case. Following the Court's February 2019 advisory opinion, which found the UK's continued administration of the archipelago unlawful, she was appointed a Member of the Order of the Star and Key of the Indian Ocean by Mauritius in recognition of her role.

Sources: Liseby Elysé, Wikipedia (biographical summary) · International Court of Justice, oral proceedings, Legal Consequences of the Separation of the Chagos Archipelago from Mauritius in 1965, The Hague, 3 September 2018