Refugee resettled in Cambodia returns to Myanmar: Australia
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SYDNEY (AFP) - One of four refugees transferred to Cambodia from an Australian detention camp as part of a resettlement deal has returned home, a minister said Friday as criticism mounted over the Aus$40 million (US$29 million) scheme.
Australia seeks to deter asylum-seekers who arrive by boat, turning back vessels and sending those that do make it to detention facilities on the Pacific islands of Papua New Guinea and Nauru with no chance of resettlement on the mainland, even if they are found to be refugees.
It also struck a deal with Phnom Penh to take in refugees in exchange for millions of dollars in aid over the next four years, although only four held on Nauru -- three Iranians and one ethnic Rohingya man from Myanmar -- have so far volunteered to move to the impoverished Southeast Asian nation.
"I can say that of the four people that originally went to Cambodia, one of those people has decided voluntarily to return," Dutton told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
"There are another two people who have volunteered to go from Nauru to Cambodia."
Cambodian officials said last month the refugee was a 25-year-old from Myanmar who wanted to return home as he was homesick.
The Labor opposition party, which supports the detention of asylum-seekers at the remote Pacific facilities, said the Cambodia deal had "failed".
"The idea that this government is proposing to resettle refugees at about Aus$10 million a pop is ludicrous," Labor leader Bill Shorten told reporters, adding that there was a need for a "genuine regional resettlement" programme.
"That is a failed scheme," he said.
The Rohingya man's return to Myanmar followed Dutton's meeting with Cambodian officials in Australia's capital Canberra on Wednesday, where immigration policies were discussed.
"Our meetings yesterday have reinforced our nations' commitment to successfully resettle refugees from Nauru and tackle people smuggling and other global immigration matters," Dutton said in a statement Thursday.
Australia has defended the hardline immigration policy, saying it has helped stop asylum-seekers from dying at sea.
Some 1,565 asylum-seekers -- 1,359 men, 114 women and 92 children -- are held on Manus Island and Nauru, according to immigration figures up to September 30.
