Silence of the Chagos

Every afternoon a woman in a red headscarf walks to the end of the quay and looks out over the water, fixing her gaze 'back there': to the small island in the Indian Ocean that she and her people have been deported from. But the island is 'closed,' there is no going back. Charlesia waits in vain for a ship to take her and her fellow Chagossians back to their home on Diego Garcia. With no explanation, and only an hour to pack, the Chagossians are deported from Diego Garcia and relocated to Mauritius. Charlesia mourns the loss of her life on Diego Garcia, where she spent her days working on a coconut plantation and her nights listening to sega music with her family and friends. But most urgently, Charlesia seeks answers for how and why this injustice happened to her people. As Charlesia struggles to come to terms with her life on Mauritius, she crosses paths with Desire, a young man born on the one-way journey to Mauritius. Desire has never set foot on Diego Garcia, but as Charlesia unf