Refugees at Kuala Lumpur airport on their way to Cambodia from Nauru. Photo: Kevin Ponniah |
August 30, 2015
Lindsay Murdoch
South-East Asia correspondent for Fairfax Media
Australia's $55 million operation to resettle hundreds of refugees from the tiny Pacific island of Nauru to Cambodia appears to have collapsed in a diplomatic embarrassment for the Abbott Government.
A senior Cambodian official says the impoverished nation has no plans to receive any more than four refugees who arrived in Phnom Penh in June, and indicated it did not want any.
"We don't have any plans to import more refugees from Nauru to Cambodia," Interior Ministry spokesman Khieu Sopheak told the Cambodia Daily.
Australia's $55 million operation to resettle hundreds of refugees from the tiny Pacific island of Nauru to Cambodia appears to have collapsed in a diplomatic embarrassment for the Abbott Government.
A senior Cambodian official says the impoverished nation has no plans to receive any more than four refugees who arrived in Phnom Penh in June, and indicated it did not want any.
Illustration: Matt Golding. |
"We don't have any plans to import more refugees from Nauru to Cambodia," Interior Ministry spokesman Khieu Sopheak told the Cambodia Daily.
"I think the less we receive the better," he said.
Under a controversial agreement with Australia the Cambodian regime has the right to decide how many refugees are resettled from Nauru.
The regime will pocket an additional $40 million in development aid from Australian taxpayers, no matter how many arrive in the country.
Additional operational costs, including providing health and education training for the first arrivals, has already topped a staggering $15 million, a Senate committee in Canberra has been told.
The Abbott government has a policy not to comment publicly on the Cambodian operation that has been condemned by Cambodian opposition parties, human rights and refugee advocate groups.
The first group of an Iranian couple, Iranian man and Rohingya man from Myanmar have been living in an Australian-funded luxury villa in a Phnom Penh suburb since they were on June 4 whisked through Phnom Penh airport to one of the world's poorest nations, where about 18 percent of the country's 15 million people survive on less than $1.22 a day.
Mr Khieu Sopheak told the Cambodia Daily the four were "enjoying their life" in Cambodia.
But they have not spoken publicly since their arrival, shielded by officials from the International Organisation for Migration which received an undisclosed amount of money from Australia for taking care of the group.