Cambodian police escort two out of the four refugees from Nauru as they arrive at Phnom Penh airport yesterday. The four are the only refugees to take part in the controversial resettlement project.
PHNOM PENH: Cambodia received its first batch of asylum-seekers from Australian custody yesterday, with rights groups labelling them “human guinea pigs” for an uncaring policy by Canberra to offload refugees on to other countries.
The migrants — three Iranians and one ethnic Rohingya from Myanmar — were flown into Phnom Penh, the capital of one of Southeast Asia’s poorest nations, with a weak record for upholding human rights.
“They have arrived now, and we already handed them to the IOM,” Chhay Bonna, the airport’s chief immigration officer said, referring to the International Organisation for Migration which is tasked with helping the four settle into their new home.
The refugees — three men and one woman — were greeted by Cambodian immigration officials and representatives from Australia’s embassy at the VIP section of Phnom Penh’s airport, a reporter on the scene said.
The IOM said the group were being taken to temporary accommodation in the Cambodian capital where they would undergo language training as well as “cultural and social orientation”.
“They’re here, they’re healthy and we ask for privacy for them,” IOM regional spokesman Joe Lowry said.
Under Canberra’s hardline immigration policy, asylum-seekers who arrive by boat are denied resettlement in Australia and sent to Papua New Guinea and Nauru, even if they are genuine refugees.
The deal was inked last September to allow those granted refugee status in Nauru to permanently resettle in Cambodia.
Under the agreement Cambodia will accept Australia’s unwanted refugees in return for millions of dollars of aid over the next four years. Canberra will cover all direct costs of the settlement arrangement and refugees will only be moved to the Southeast Asian nation if they volunteer.
But the UN has condemned the deal, while refugee advocates said asylum-seekers do not want to be sent to Cambodia, a country that has been criticised for its own record of helping refugees, particularly Vietnamese Montagnards who are often deported and forced to return to their persecutors.
The mainly Christian ethnic minorities from Vietnam’s Central Highlands cross into Cambodia to escape discrimination.
Rights groups hit out yesterday at the move to ship the first set of refugees to Cambodia under the deal with Australia.
“Cambodia clearly has no will or capacity to integrate refugees permanently into society,” Phil Robertson, from Human Rights Watch said.
“These four refugees are essentially human guinea pigs in an Australian experiment that ignores the fact that Cambodia has not integrated other refugees and has already sent Montagnards and Uighur asylum seekers back into harm’s way in Vietnam and China.”
Conditions f or migrants shipped to Nauru by Australia have also raised alarm bells.
Amnesty International Australia said Cambodia’s track record of protecting asylum-seekers was “poor” and called on Canberra to “cease the transfer of asylum seekers and refugees to third countries where they are not adequately protected from human rights abuses”.
Asylum-seekers on Nauru live in tents with little privacy and camp staff have made claims of sexual abuse of women and children there.