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Another Nauru refugee leaves Cambodia for Iran

Xinhua, May 27, 2016 Adjust font size:

A Cambodian official has confirmed an Iranian refugee, transferred to the Kingdom under a controversial 30 million U.S. dollars deal, has returned to Iran, local media reported on Friday.

Kem Sarin, director of the administration department at the Interior Ministry's General Department of Immigration, said the Iranian refugee had left Cambodia in April.

"He volunteered to go back home," Sarin was quoted as saying by the Phnom Penh Post. "To go back to their home country is their right ... It doesn't impact the deal."

"If they want to stay here, we welcome that. If they want to go home to reunite with their relatives and enjoy their family, we more than welcome that," he said.

Only five (three Iranians and two Myanmar men) of the refugees on the South Pacific island of Nauru have moved to Phnom Penh since Cambodia and Australia clinched the resettlement deal with a champagne toast at the Interior Ministry in September 2014.

The latest departure leaves just one refugee from Nauru --Mohammed Rashid from Myanmar --in Cambodia.

The official said Cambodia will send a team to Nauru sometime next month to interview two more Iranian refugees, who volunteered to resettle in Cambodia. Enditem