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Today in history, 24 October: The withdrawal of the OSCE Verification Mission

On the orders of OSCE Chairman-in-Office Knut Vollebæk, the Verification Mission withdrew from Kosovo to Macedonia on 20 March 1999. HRW and the OSCE record that attacks on Albanian villages intensified from that day.

The recorded event closest to today's date in the archive calendar.

Date of the event
Place
Unknown
Evidence status
Evidence status: Documented. Supported by contemporaneous documents, institutional reports or independent studies that corroborate one another.
A man with glasses and a moustache speaks into microphones, the OSCE logo behind him
William Walker addresses the press on his report to the OSCE Permanent Council after the mission's withdrawal, March 1999.Photo: Bela Szandelszky / OSCE / OSCE · 1999-03 · CC BY-ND 4.0

On the orders of OSCE Chairman-in-Office Knut Vollebæk, the Verification Mission withdrew from Kosovo to Macedonia on 20 March 1999. HRW and the OSCE record that attacks on Albanian villages intensified from that day.

Full event record, with sources and map

Historical context

1999

From the Reçak massacre to the entry of KFOR: six months that saw failed negotiations, NATO's intervention, the mass expulsion of Albanians and crimes documented by international courts.

Read the chapter “1999: Reçak, expulsions and the end of the war”

Sources

  1. [1]Tribunali Penal Ndërkombëtar për ish-Jugosllavinë (ICTY). Prosecutor v. Milutinović et al., Judgement, Volume 1 of 4. 2009-02-26. IT-05-87-T. https://www.icty.org/x/cases/milutinovic/tjug/en/jud090226-e1of4.pdf. Accessed 2026-09-16.
  2. [2]OSBE — Zyra për Institucione Demokratike dhe të Drejta të Njeriut (ODIHR). Kosovo/Kosova: As Seen, As Told: An analysis of the human rights findings of the OSCE Kosovo Verification Mission, October 1998 to June 1999. 1999. https://www.osce.org/files/f/documents/d/d/17772.pdf. Accessed 2026-09-16.
  3. [3]Fred Abrahams, Benjamin Ward. Under Orders: War Crimes in Kosovo. 2001-10-26. https://www.hrw.org/reports/2001/kosovo/. Accessed 2026-09-16.

This post is created automatically from the archive's checked data and from public news feeds. Not one sentence was written by artificial intelligence. Published: .