Syrian one of three who volunteered for transfer

NAURU – A Syrian man quietly arrived in Cambodia on Sunday, becoming just the sixth refugee detained by Australia on Nauru to take up an offer of resettlement in the third-party country since a $40 million deal was signed two years ago.

The country’s immigration chief, General Sok Phal, confirmed the man’s arrival to the Guardian on Tuesday but referred further questions to the head of the refugee department, General Tan Sovichea, who hung up the phone when contacted about the transfer.

The Cambodia Daily quoted Sovichea as saying that the refugee was staying at the Phnom Penh offices of the International Organisation for Migration, which won a tender to facilitate the resettlement of Nauru volunteers last year.

The IOM’s refugee settlement manager for Cambodia, Kristin Dadey, could not be reached.

The man is one of three men who last month volunteered for transfer to Cambodia.

Ian Rintoul of Australia’s Refugee Action Coalition told the Guardian that the Syrian man had initially been told he would be given the chance to be reunited with his family, who are in a Jordanian refugee camp, upon arrival in Cambodia.

Rintoul said he had been told this deal might now be off the table.

A second volunteer, believed to be from Afghanistan, had allegedly sought a transfer home.

“He found out he was being sent to Cambodia rather than home, or on his way home,” Rintoul said. “We’ve been told that people who want to go home have to go via Cambodia.”

Rintoul said he was trying to determine why the third man, whose nationality has not been confirmed, had decided to remain on Nauru.

At present, Cambodia is the only third-country option available to detainees on Nauru who have been determined to be refugees.

On Tuesday Australia’s immigration minister, Peter Dutton, has said his government has been courting third countries besides Cambodia “for a long period of time and we are going to land a deal”.

Rintoul said he believed there have been “no countries forthcoming” on that front.

“I think it’s very clear there are no UNHCR-resettling countries that will be involved in resettling arrangements when Australia has deliberately and consciously subverted international resettling protocols,” he said.

The decision by the foreign minister, Julie Bishop, to approach Cambodia in January 2014 was derided by refugee advocates and the Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young, who said Australia’s unwanted refugees would effectively be “dumped” in the country.

Despite this, the deal was sealed by the then immigration minister, Scott Morrison, and the Cambodian interior minister, Sar Kheng, in a champagne ceremony in September that year.

Just four people took up the offer initially, and all of them – three Iranians and a Rohingya man – have since returned to their home countries. A fifth Rohingya refugee arrived separately and remains in Phnom Penh.

Australia’s immigration department said the two countries remained committed to the refugee deal but it would not comment on individual cases.

“Australia and Cambodia are committed to an arrangement that provides refugees with the support they need to integrate into the Cambodian community and build new lives,” it said.