by Our Foreign Desk

RELUCTANT refugees are being “bluffed” into accepting relocation to Cambodia by the Abbott administration, Australian rights activists said yesterday.

Canberra’s fanatically anti-immigration government signed a deal with Cambodia in 2014, which will cost Australia more than AU$10 million (£5m) a year.

The deal stipulated that refugees accepting deportation from Australia to Cambodia could apply for Cambodian citizenship after seven years.

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

But advocacy group Refugee Action Collective spokesman Ian Rintoul said that he had heard of no-one in the detention camp on Nauru accepting the deal.

“They spoke to Somalis yesterday and said it was the last day for them to agree and none of them agreed,” Mr Rintoul said.

“They’re pushing pretty hard but, as far as I know, they’ve got no-one yet,” he added.

The arrangement by the Australian government has been condemned by human rights activists as inhumane and potentially dangerous.

A charter flight could take the first refugees as early as Monday, according to a fact sheet circulated recently by Australian officials in Nauru.

The document tells refugees “Cambodia is a safe country where police maintain law and order … it does not have problems with violent crime or stray dogs.”

The reality, however, is rather different.

Corruption, human rights violations and human trafficking are a major concern in Cambodia.

And the US State Department reported earlier this month that Cambodia’s crime rating was “critical,” including random gunfire incidents.