UK offers to airlift marooned asylum seekers off remote military island

For three years, almost 60 Tamil migrants have been marooned on the remote Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia. Now the UK government has proposed transporting more than half of them to Romania, with a later offer of resettlement in Britain.

The men, women and children have been held in a camp on the island, which is home to a joint British-American military base, since their boat ran into trouble.

The rat-infested conditions have been described as inhumane, with children at immediate and growing risk of serious harm.