A charter flight from Diego Garcia, where the United States operates a military base in Chagos, located to the south of Maldives, has landed at Velana International Airport yesterday.
A charter flight from Diego Garcia, where the United States operates a military base in Chagos, located to the south of Maldives, has landed at Velana International Airport yesterday.
The flight from Diego Garcia to the Maldives' main airport, Velana International Airport, was operated by "Beond," the Maldives' first luxury airline.
According to the arrival information at Velana International Airport, Beond's flight "B4 3101" departed from Diego Garcia and landed in the Maldives last night at 19:14 hrs.
The reason for this trip from the military base to the Maldives, and who chartered the flight, is not yet clear.
However, Beond has previously organized charter flights for various purposes. The Maldivian government had previously chartered a flight from this airline to bring back Maldivians from Syria.
Diego Garcia is one of the 60 islands that make up the Chagos Islands, located 500 kilometers south of the Maldives in the Indian Ocean.
After granting independence to Mauritius, the Chagos islands were separated from that country and placed under British control. In the 1970s, people were forcibly removed from the Chagos islands. Diego Garcia, the main atoll of Chagos, was later leased to the United States to operate a military base.