UN Mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina ends.

Successfully completing the most extensive police reform and restructuring mandate ever undertaken by the United Nations, the UN Mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina (UNMIBH) ceased operations on 31 December 2002. Set up in 1995, UNMIBH exercised a wide range of functions related to law enforcement activities and police reform. It also coordinated other UN activities in the country relating to humanitarian relief and refugees, demining, human rights, elections and rehabilitation of infrastructure and economic reconstruction. "Through UNMIBH, the United Nations has demonstrated its ability to complete a complex mandate in accordance with a strategic plan and within a realistic and finite time frame", Secretary-General Kofi Annan said.

After seven years of police reform resulting in the creation of a national police force and state border service, "Bosnia and Herzegovina now has 'a police force lit for Europe', firmly based on international standards of democratic policing and in the service of all citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina", the Mission said. The European Union Police Mission has taken over the tasks performed by UNMIBH. The United Nations will remain engaged in furthering the country's post-war development and recovery through the work of its agencies.