“We have received only one volunteer… and our team is now working with our Australian counterparts,” a ministry's spokesman said as quoted by the Cambodia Daily.
He added that the volunteer is a Rohingya, who fled to Australia from Burma.
Canberra was going to send the first group of volunteers to Cambodia on Monday, but had to delay the flight, according to the media outlet. At the moment, Cambodia said there were no more volunteers it knew of.
The upcoming relocation of refugees is a part of a $31-million resettlement deal, signed by Australia and Cambodia in September 2014. According to it, Cambodia agreed to host an unlimited number of refugees from Australia.
A number of non-profit civic groups criticized Australia’s resettlement deal, alluding to Cambodia’s poor living conditions that are reportedly unsuitable for accepting refugees.
The Nauru Regional Processing Center was established under a Memorandum of Understanding signed by the Australian and Nauruan governments in 2012. As of February 2015, there were 742 asylum seekers held at the detention center, according to Australian Customs and Border Protection Service estimates.
In early 2015, Australia's Immigration Minister Peter Dutton reaffirmed that the detainees will not be allowed into Australia regardless of the negative publicity, protests and self-harming activity.
