Cambodia gets 6th refugee as Australia courts options

By Lauren Crothers

PHNOM PENH

Another refugee previously detained by Australia on the South Pacific island of Nauru has arrived in Cambodia after volunteering for resettlement.

The move comes as the Australian immigration minister says he is continuing to look for a third country to resettle the country's unwanted refugees.

Gen. Sok Phal, the director-general of immigration at Cambodia’s Interior Ministry, told Anadolu Agency on Tuesday that one refugee had arrived, and referred further questions to refugee chief Gen. Tan Sovichea, who hung up when contacted.

Sovichea earlier told The Cambodia Daily that the Syrian individual was being taken care of by staff from the International Organization for Migration.

Kristin Dadey, program manager of the IOM’s Refugee Settlement Program, could not be reached when Anadolu Agency tried to contact her.

The Syrian man is one of three people who originally volunteered to be part of the latest transfer to Cambodia. The other two ultimately decided not to come.

Ian Rintoul of the Refugee Action Coalition told Anadolu Agency by phone from Australia on Tuesday that one of the men, an Afghan, decided to pull out because it had been his intention to go back to Afghanistan.

He said that he then “found out he was being sent to Cambodia rather than home, or on his way home,” and he did not want to go to Cambodia.

Rintoul said he was trying to ascertain why the third man decided against coming too.

He said he had also been told by a source on Nauru that two Tamil families had also been transferred to Cambodia over the past few weeks, but was seeking confirmation of such movement.

Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop asked Cambodia if it would act as a third-country option in January 2014.

In September of that year, then-Australian Immigration Minister Scott Morrison and Interior Minister Sar Kheng signed a $40-million deal for refugees detained on Nauru to be given to Cambodia as a resettlement option.

The Syrian is just the sixth person to take up that offer. An original group of three Iranians and a Rohingya Muslim came and left.

A fifth man, also a Rohingya, arrived last year and remains in Phnom Penh.

On Tuesday, Australian Immigration Minister Peter Dutton said in a doorstop interview that his government continues to court third country options.

“[T]he Government’s been very clear that we have been in negotiation with third countries for a long period of time and we are going to land a deal,” he said in comments emailed to reporters from his office.

“We are going to provide third country options because I don’t want to see people on Nauru and Manus,” he continued.

“[I]f we offer a reasonable third country option to people, I can assure you those people will not be coming to this country."

Rintoul underlined that the comments had been Dutton's standard response for 12 months.

"There are no countries forthcoming. I don’t believe they are any closer to a deal than they were three months ago," he said.