LONDON (AP) — A British court said Thursday that the U.K. can transfer sovereignty over the contested and strategically located Chagos Islands to Mauritius, overturning a block that was imposed hours before the agreement was due to be signed.

Dugasse, 68, has spent most of her life in the Seychelles and the U.K., wondering what it would be like to set foot on the tropical island of Diego Garcia, part of the remote cluster of atolls in the middle of the Indian Ocean called the Chagos Islands.

A signing ceremony ceding the British Indian Ocean Territory of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius on Thursday was called off at the last moment after Britain's High Court granted an injunction in the middle of the night to islanders opposing the deal.