South Africa has placed military units to assist police operations along the border of Lesotho, Zimbabwe, and Mozambique to control smuggling, poaching, and illegal migration
dispute with Tanzania over the boundary in Lake Nyasa (Lake Malawi) and the meandering Songwe River; Malawi contends that the entire lake up to the Tanzanian shoreline is its territory, while Tanzania claims the border is in the center of the lake; the conflict was reignited in 2012 when Malawi awarded a license to a British company for oil exploration in the lake
Illicit drugs
southern African transit point for South Asian hashish and heroin, and South American cocaine probably destined for the European and South African markets; producer of cannabis (for local consumption) and methaqualone (for export to South Africa); corruption and poor regulatory capability make the banking system vulnerable to money laundering, but the lack of a well-developed financial infrastructure limits the country's utility as a money-laundering center
targeted by traffickers moving hashish, Afghan heroin, and South American cocaine transported down the East African coastline, through airports, or overland through Central Africa; Zanzibar likely used by traffickers for drug smuggling; traffickers in the past have recruited Tanzanian couriers to move drugs through Iran into East Asia
Refugees and internally displaced persons
refugees (country of origin): 10,383 (Democratic Republic of Congo) (refugees and asylum seekers), 8,887 (Burundi) (refugees and asylum seekers) (2021)
IDPs: 668,000 (violence between the government and an opposition group, violence associated with extremists groups in 2018, political violence 2019) (2021)
refugees (country of origin): 133,029 (Burundi), 79,002 (Democratic Republic of the Congo) (2021)
