More refugees leave Cambodia, further straining $55m deal with Australia.

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Australia’s $55m refugee resettlement deal with Cambodia has been dealt another crippling blow, with two more refugees deciding to abandon the south-east Asian country and risking a return home.
Of the five refugees transferred to Cambodia, three have decided to go home, leaving just two resettled refugees in the country.
Australia is still obliged to bear the full $55m cost of the deal – $40m in additional aid and $15.5m in resettlement assistance – regardless of the number of refugees resettled.
The latest pair, a married Iranian couple, are understood to have left the country in February.
Sok Phal, director of the Interior Ministry’s immigration department, told theCambodia Daily the pair had voluntarily returned to Iran.
“They [are] back already,” he said. “They wanted to return back home. You ask me why, I don’t know.”
All of those who have abandoned Cambodia have been found to be genuine refugees, that is they have a “well-founded fear of persecution” in their homelands.
Despite this risk – exacerbated by their seeking asylum overseas – they have opted to return home, to Iran and to Myanmar.
The office of the immigration minister, Peter Dutton, has confirmed the two latest departures from Cambodia. The Australian government maintains it remains in discussions with several countries in the Asia Pacific region about resettling refugees from its offshore detention centres in Manus Island, PNG, and Nauru.
The Papua New Guinea prime minister, Peter O’Neill, said last week his country had been damaged by the ongoing scandals and abuses within the Manus Island detention centre, and said his country could not resettle the 900 men held there. The Nauruan government has consistently refused to ever permanently resettle any refugees.
Australia’s deal with Cambodia to resettle refugees sent from Australia to detention centre camps on Nauru has attracted fierce criticism.
Human rights group such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty have argued that impoverished Cambodia, whose government faces a slew of human rights abuse allegations, is an unsuitable countries in which to resettle refugees.
In Australia, criticism has centred on the cost to taxpayers.
Under the deal, signed in September 2014 by the then immigration minister, Scott Morrison, and Cambodia’s interior minister, Sar Kheng, Australia promised an additional $40m in aid to the impoverished country as well as $15.5m in resettlement, housing, education and integration costs for the refugees.

The deal was not contingent on Cambodia taking a certain number of refugees.

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