The controversial Nauru refugee resettlement deal received another blow when one of the two remaining refugees in Cambodia said he is “unwell and lonely,” in need of medical attention and fears he “will die here.”
In an interview with Fairfax Media, 26-year-old Mohammed Rashid complained that he has received only $4,000 of the $8,000 payout promised by the Australian government to persuade him to move from Nauru. He added that the other perks he was promised, such as good healthcare and employment, have not materialized.
These revelations are the latest black eye to a $40 million refugee resettlement deal struck between the Australian and Cambodian governments in 2014. Australian opposition politicians are now calling for an audit of the program.
“Spending millions of dollars to grease the wheels of a corrupt regime so that the government can dump a handful of people in an impoverished country is unacceptable,” Greens party immigration spokeswoman Sarah Hanson-Young told Fairfax yesterday. She called for “an independent assessment of value for money.”
It is not the first time the Nauru refugee resettlement program has come under fire. Multiple groups have said that Cambodia – with human rights abuses of its own and a weak healthcare system – is ill-equipped to deal with refugees.
The International Organization for Migration (IOM) received a hefty $11 million budget to pay for medical healthcare, housing and employment for Mr. Rashid and one other refugee in Phnom Penh. It has spent $1.4 million on the two refugees so far, including hundreds of thousands spent on a luxury villa where Mr. Rashid no longer lives.
This controversial refugee deal was signed in 2014 when Australia promised to give Cambodia $40 million in aid in exchange for Cambodia taking refugees from Nauru. In the years since, all but two of the five refugees who came to Cambodia have returned to their home countries, but that did not stop Australian immigration minister Peter Dutton from hailing the deal as a success last week.
“The fact that we’ve had no drownings at sea and no successful boat arrivals I think is a pretty good outcome,” Mr. Dutton said in an interview with an Australian radio station.
Mr. Rashid was one of the five Nauru refugees who agreed to the resettlement deal. He originally left Indonesia bound for Australia on a boat operated by people smugglers, but was intercepted by Australian authorities and detained on Nauru in 2013. He arrived in Phnom Penh three months ago.
He told Fairfax Media that he now regrets the decision to leave Nauru. He suffers from kidney and lung problems as well as asthma, but said IOM has been unresponsive to his requests to be hospitalized. In a particularly harrowing part of his interview, he described having a friend take him to a hospital in Phnom Penh where doctors said he needed to stay at least 10 days for observation. Representatives from IOM spoke to doctors at the hospital and said he was only allowed to stay there for three days despite his illnesses. This, he said, contributed to an overall feeling of abandonment and isolation from the outside world.
A spokesman for Mr. Dutton told Fairfax a different story, saying that IOM officials contact Mr. Rashid daily, and added that he has declined offers of better housing and healthcare. “[Mr. Rashid has] so far declined to engage with IOM on their offer of assistance in seeking permanent accommodation options,” the spokesperson told Fairfax.
Kem Sarin, a spokesman for the Cambodian refugee department, told Khmer Times that he was surprised to read of Mr. Rashid’s problems. “I was wondering as well regarding that [the report],” he said. “We have more than 60 refugees in Cambodia that have integrated into the community – except him.”
Mr. Sarin added that the Cambodian refugee department is not responsible for Mr. Rashid’s wellbeing. “We are responsible for providing legal documents, to provide him a legal stay,” he said, “but for other services the IOM is the one [responsible].” Despite repeated phone calls and emails, IOM could not be reached for comment.
Mr. Rashid said he has warned other Nauru refugees against accepting the Australian government’s offer of a home in Cambodia. He said he has been told he cannot return to the island. “If I am going to die, I should have stayed in Nauru and died there,” he told Fairfax Media.