Mauritius

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At least 17 passengers have been injured, two of them seriously, after a Condor Airlines flight from Frankfurt, Germany, to Mauritius was hit by severe turbulence.

The plane was caught in the severe turbulence while flying near Madagascar, two hours before its scheduled landing in Mauritius.

Footage of the plane's interior showed damages.

There were 270 passengers on board Flight DE 2314 during the incident on Thursday, according to Mauritius police.

It managed to make an emergency landing at Mauritius international airport at around 06:40 local time (02:40GMT), police said.

An emergency team evacuated the injured passengers to the nearest hospital.

“According to initial information, the incident occurred in mid-flight near Madagascar," said Inspector Shiva Coothen of the Mauritius police press office.

“The authorities are waiting for the captain's report to establish the circumstances surrounding this incident,” he added.

Mauritius was last week hit by Cyclone Freddy that saw flights grounded. Much of the southern Africa region has been experiencing heavy rains in recent weeks.

Cyclone Freddy has weakened in the last few hours, but it continues to approach Mauritius "dangerously" and poses a "direct threat to the island", the local weather bureau has reported.

The sea is expected to swell to about seven metres beyond the reefs.

About 400 people in the capital, Port Louis, and other areas have been evacuated to 18 refugee centres.

The island nation of Mauritius has grounded flights as Cyclone Freddy approaches.

It's warned of a dangerous storm surge and winds of up to 120km an hour.

The cyclone is also expected to hit Madagascar as well as coastal nations from Tanzania to South Africa.

Much of the region has been saturated by weeks of heavy rain.

Fights and public transport in Mauritius have been disrupted amid warnings of an intense tropical cyclone.

The Mauritius Meteorological Services said at 07:00 local time, a “very intense tropical Cyclone Freddy was centred at about 275km to the north-east of Mauritius”, moving west at a speed of 30km/h.

It estimated that wind gusts near its centre was about 300 km/h.

The weather agency urged the public to follow all precautions and stay in safe places.

The country’s national carrier, Air Mauritius, issued a schedule of flights that it had cancelled.

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The Mauritius government says it's providing a guarantee for all people of Chagossian origin who wish to resettle in the Chagos archipelago to be able to do so.

Chagosians were forced off the island by British troops more than 50 years ago.

"All persons of Chagossian origin, wherever they live in the world, who wish to resettle will be able to do so in accordance with the laws of Mauritius," the Mauritian prime minister said in a statement.

It comes after the rights watchdog Human Rights Watch accused the UK of crimes against humanity in its refusal to allow a group of islanders to return to the archipelago.

The rights group said reparations should be paid to generations of people affected by the decision to depopulate the remote islands, deep in the Indian Ocean.

In the statement, Prime Minister Pravind Kumar Jugnauth thanked HRW for its extensive research and said it was "committed to the implementation of an effective plan for resettlement".

“The government reiterates that it has always maintained that the forced exile of the entire Chagossian community was a terrible wrong and that justice must be done," he said.

Mr Jugnauth said he had a phone conversation with UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak following the report, where they reviewed "ongoing negotiations on the exercise of sovereignty" over the islands.

In a report of more than 100 pages, the HRW relied on dozens of testimonies and official documents, accusing the UK and the United States of having committed crimes against humanity by displacing the indigenous population from the disputed archipelago.

That accusation was "categorically" rejected by London.

The HRW report comes as the UK is facing growing international condemnation for holding on to what it calls the “British Indian Ocean Territory,” with the UN’s International Court of Justice ruling that the continuing British occupation of the archipelago is illegal.

• Read: Chagos islanders in emotional, historic trip home

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The UK has been accused of crimes against humanity in its refusal to allow a group of islanders to return to the Chagos archipelago, half a century after they were forced off the island by British troops.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) said reparations should be paid to generations of people affected by the decision to depopulate the remote islands, deep in the Indian Ocean.

The UK's Foreign Office has responded by repeating its “deep regret” about the manner in which people were removed from the islands in the late 1960s and early 70s. But it stressed that “we categorically reject the characterisation of events” as crimes against humanity.

The HRW report comes as the UK is facing growing international condemnation for holding on to what it calls the “British Indian Ocean Territory,” with the UN’s International Court of Justice ruling that the continuing British occupation of the archipelago is illegal.

The UN General Assembly has also voted, overwhelmingly, in favour of the islands being returned to Mauritius.

“The UK is today committing an appalling colonial crime, treating all Chagossians as a people without rights. The UK and the US, who together expelled the Chagossians from their homes, should provide full reparations for the harm they have caused,” said HRW’s senior legal adviser, Clive Baldwin.

The UK insisted on keeping hold of the Chagos islands when it negotiated Mauritius’s independence in 1968. Mauritian officials have since accused the UK of “blackmailing” them into relinquishing the territory.

The UK had already entered into secret talks with the US to lease one of the islands, Diego Garcia, to Washington for use as a military base.

Today the Foreign Office insisted that base “helps to keep people in Britain, the region and around the world safe, combatting some of the most challenging threats to international peace and security, including those from terrorism and piracy, and responding to humanitarian crises".

But with all but a handful of nations now backing Mauritius’s claim, the UK has now entered into negotiations about the sovereignty of the Chagos archipelago.

Jagdish Koonjul, Mauritius’s UN ambassador, described those talks as “constructive", and his government welcomed the HRW report, saying: “Justice must be done.”

Mauritius insists the US can continue to keep its base on Diego Garcia, and that it will commit to resettling “any individuals of Chagossian origin” on their home islands.

Read: Chagos islanders in emotional, historic trip home

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The parliament in Mauritius will on Tuesday debate a motion of no confidence filed against the government by the leader of the opposition Xavier-Luc Duval.

The motion follows last month's protests against high prices of foodstuffs, public transport, petroleum products and cooking gas.

Mr Duval also wants the government to reverse some of its "unhealthy policies" and take urgent measures to improve the wellbeing of citizens.

The no-confidence motion is the first in 26 years.

Debate is expected to be held until late on Tuesday night as it is expected to last for 10 hours and 30 minutes.

Prime Minister Pravind Jugnauth previously said the country was still reeling from the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine.