The tropical south Pacific islands of Palau, a place so languorous even jellyfish have lost their sting, is proving insufficiently alluring to 12 Chinese Uighur men who have spent the last seven years locked up at the US detention centre at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

Johnson Toribiong, Palau’s president, this month announced he would accommodate 17 Uighurs who US officials have sought to resettle in the US or overseas for several years after both military and court decisions that the men, captured after the Nato invasion of Afghanistan, posed no threat and should be released.