Rita Elysée Bancoult
Chagossian Elder and Co-Founder of the Chagos Refugees Group
Who is Rita Elysée Bancoult?
Rita Elysée Bancoult was a Chagossian woman who lived on the Chagos Archipelago before the mass expulsion of its people by the United Kingdom. According to the documented account gathered by anthropologist David Vine, she once undertook a four-day boat voyage with her sick daughter to reach a hospital in Mauritius; her daughter died because medical help came too late. When Bancoult later tried to return home, she was turned away at the dock and told her island had been sold and she would never go there again, losing everything she owned in the process. Resettled in poverty in Mauritius with her children, including her son Olivier Bancoult, she became one of the earliest and most forceful voices testifying to the human cost of the Chagos expulsion. In 1982, together with fellow activists Charlesia Alexis and Aurélie Marie-Lisette Talate, she co-founded the Chagos Refugees Group, the organisation that has led the Chagossian campaign for the right of return ever since.
Sources: David Vine, Island of Shame: The Secret History of the U.S. Military Base on Diego Garcia (Princeton University Press, 2009) · Louis Olivier Bancoult, Wikipedia (biographical summary of the Bancoult family and the founding of the Chagos Refugees Group)