The Yugoslav army started withdrawing from the Port of Koper on the 20th of October and the 25th was set as the last day of departure. The last soldiers, with their vehicles, equipment and weapons, boarded the Venus and PO-9 ships, sailing under foreign flags.
One of the key persons in the negotiating team for the departure, Dr Boris Žnidarič, remembers: "According to my assessments and information, 3,400 of them left Slovenia. But we must not forget that the JLA units started withdrawing in the beginning of August, with all their battle equipment, tanks, and with everything that could be transported via railways and roads."

Slovene soldiers and police units monitored the departure in full combat readiness. "We did not provoke the JLA in any way. We must know that some of them were leaving places where they had lived for a long time. Places where they had friends, acquaintances, neighbours," explains Žnidarič.
Of course, the situation was also tense: "When I see the old video footage and see my right hand pointing with a finger – as if saying, load that thing too and then go – it was quite tense. A young junior officer started to make threats with his weapon, but a general from Ljubljana calmed him down, telling him: just board and give us peace!"

The 25th of October has been observed as a state holiday since 2015. The Association of Slovenian Independence War Veterans and the Sever Police Veterans' Association will organise this year's national ceremony in Celje.