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South Africa vs. Zimbabwe

Transnational Issues

South AfricaZimbabwe
Disputes - international

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; the governments of South Africa and Namibia have not signed or ratified the text of the 1994 Surveyor's General agreement placing the boundary in the middle of the Orange River

Namibia has supported, and in 2004 Zimbabwe dropped objections to, plans between Botswana and Zambia to build a bridge over the Zambezi River, thereby de facto recognizing a short, but not clearly delimited, Botswana-Zambia boundary in the river; 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

Illicit drugstransshipment center for heroin, hashish, and cocaine, as well as a major cultivator of marijuana in its own right; cocaine and heroin consumption on the rise; world's largest market for illicit methaqualone, usually imported illegally from India through various east African countries, but increasingly producing its own synthetic drugs for domestic consumption; attractive venue for money launderers given the increasing level of organized criminal and narcotics activity in the region and the size of the South African economytransit point for cannabis and South Asian heroin, mandrax, and methamphetamines en route to South Africa
Refugees and internally displaced personsrefugees (country of origin): 27,113 (Somalia), 17,726 (Ethiopia), 5,273 (Republic of the Congo) (2019); 57,595 (Democratic Republic of the Congo) (refugees and asylum seekers) (2021)

IDPs: 5,000 (2020)		refugees (country of origin): 11,334 (Democratic Republic of Congo) (refugees and asylum seekers) (2021)

Source: CIA Factbook