International News

SYDNEY, (APP/AFP) – Two more refugees resettled in
Cambodia from an Australian detention camp have returned home, the government said Tuesday, sparking renewed criticism about the Aus$55 million (US$40 million) scheme.
Under Canberra’s hardline policy to stop asylum-seeker boats reaching
its shores, those arriving by sea are denied resettlement in Australia even if found to be genuine refugees.
Instead they are turned back to their country of departure or sent to
the tiny Pacific state of Nauru or Manus Island in Papua New Guinea.
The government also struck a deal with Phnom Penh in September 2014
to take in refugees in exchange for millions of dollars in aid, in a move condemned by rights groups and questioned by the UN.
Initially only four people held on Nauru — three Iranians and one
ethnic Rohingya man from Myanmar — volunteered to move to the impoverished Southeast Asian nation, which has a weak record of upholding human rights. A fifth, another Rohingya, joined them later.
One of the Rohingya decided to return home last October, citing
homesickness. Now two of the three Iranians have also left.
“Refugees can elect to return to their country of origin at any time,
which is what an Iranian couple in Cambodia decided to do recently,” said a spokesman for Immigration Minister Peter Dutton.
A Cambodian immigration spokesman said the couple were “quite happy
living in Cambodia, but they returned to Iran because they were homesick after a long time away”.
Australia’s Labor opposition party, which supports the detention of
asylum-seekers at the remote Pacific facilities, said with so few opting for
resettlement the Cambodian scheme was a “dud”.
“Not only has the coalition (government) wasted Aus$55 million of
taxpayers money on this dud deal, they have also left more than 2,000 people on Manus and Nauru in limbo for nearly three years on their watch,” said shadow immigration spokesman Richard Marles.
“The inability of this government to secure a meaningful resettlement
arrangement with a credible third country is a serious failure on the part of (Prime Minister) Malcolm Turnbull.”
Dutton defended the arrangement with Phnom Penh.
“The government remains committed to supporting the government of
Cambodia to implement settlement arrangements in Cambodia and encourages refugees temporarily in Nauru to explore this settlement option,” he said.
“The government holds firm on our policy that you if arrive by boat
then you can either return to your country of origin or be resettled in a third country.”