Critics slam Australia’s plan to pay refugees

CANBERRA, AUSTRALIA— Refugees from Africa, the Middle East and South Asia who are being held on the Pacific atoll of Nauru after being rejected by Australia could soon be paid to resettle in impoverished Cambodia in an arrangement by the Australian government that’s been condemned by human rights activists as inhumane and potentially dangerous.

The deal signed last year with Cambodia, which will cost Australia more than $9.5 million a year, is the latest step in Australia’s evolving policy of deterring asylum seekers from attempting to reach Australian shores by boat.

The government has vowed that no boat arrivals will ever be resettled in Australia.

More than 200 of the 1,200 asylum seekers held in an Australian-run detention camp on Nauru have been assessed to be genuine refugees and are eligible for resettlement in Cambodia if they volunteer to go, according to Australian officials.

It isn’t clear how many of them — including Iranians, Pakistanis, Afghans, Somalis, Sudanese and Uighurs — have agreed to go to Cambodia.

A spokesman for the advocacy group Refugee Action Collective, Ian Rintoul, said Thursday he had heard of no one on Nauru accepting the deal.

“I do know they spoke to Somalis yesterday and said it was the last day for them to agree and none of them agreed,” Rintoul said. “They’re pushing pretty hard around the place, but as far as I know, they’ve got no one yet.”

A charter flight could take the first refugees as early as Monday, according to a copy of a fact sheet that the Refugee Action Collective said has been circulated at Nauru.