Migrants

The repatriation of eight Cambodian men believed to have been trafficked to India has been delayed after an organisation that has agreed to pay for their return flights requested more documentation, a Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman said Tuesday. Koy Kuong said earlier this week that they were due to return to Cambodia on Wednesday. He said Wednesday, though, that officials in India working for the International Organisation on Migration “need more information”, though he added that he did not expect the delay to be lengthy. “The sponsors for buying the plane tickets for those eight men in India need more information about those people from our embassy in India and the Indian authorities, so they have to suspend their return to Cambodia,” he said. The men are suspected to have struck a deal with a middleman in Cambodia that they thought would lead to jobs in Thailand, only to find themselves being transported to India unexpectedly. Bruno Maltoni, a project coordinator at the IOM in Phnom Penh, said Wednesday that he did not know when the men would be returned.