Cambodia agrees to take in 4 Australian refugees

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen has agreed to accept the four refugees that Australia had been holding on the Pacific island of Nauru to be resettled in Cambodia, eight months after the two countries signed a refugee agreement, a spokesman confirmed Thursday. "Prime Minister Hun Sen agreed to accept the four refugees on May 20,"Cambodian Interior Ministry spokesman Khieu Sopheak said, adding that the exact date of the transfer of the four people to Cambodia is not determined yet.

The four refugees are a Myanmar's Rohingyan minority man, an Iranian couple and an Iranian man.

Sok Phal, chief of the Cambodia's General Department of Immigration, said last week that the four refugees had voluntarily agreed to resettle in Cambodia after Cambodian officials had visited Nauru for three times to inform them about the situation in Cambodia.

Cambodia and Australia signed a refugee deal in September, under which Australia will send refugees, who intend to seek asylum in Australia and are being held in an offshore detention camp in the tiny Pacific nation of Nauru, to resettle in Cambodia.

The deal has drawn criticism from human rights groups and opposition parties in both countries. They claim Cambodia is too poor to take in Australia's refugees and accused Australia of shirking its human rights responsibilities to other poorer and under-resourced nations. Endi