November 26, 2015

Riddle of the Rohingya Resettler Solved by a Roti Seller

PHNOM PENH: Mohammed Ibrahim took time off selling warm roti on the crowded streets of the Cambodian capital to greet a fellow Rohingya man who was arriving in the country under Australia's controversial $55 million agreement to resettle refugees from Nauru.

Mr Ibrahim felt empathy for the single man in his early 20s who had decided to abandon hopes of reaching Australia to take a one-way ticket to one of the world's poorest nations.

"I want to help him . . . life is very difficult for us here," he said, as he waited at the gate of Phnom Penh's airport on a stifling hot morning in June.

But the man and three Iranian refugees - the first and only group so far to arrive from Nauru - were whisked past him in a van and taken to a luxury villa in a Phnom Penh suburb.

Over the following weeks 32-year-old Mr Ibrahim made repeated attempts to contact the newly arrived Rohingya, including asking the Australian embassy to arrange a meeting, but was blocked each time.

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