Congolese Mukwege, Iraq’s Murad win 2018 Nobel Peace Prize

Denis Mukwege, from the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Nadia Murad from Iraq have won the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize.

Mukwege is a gynaecologist treating victims of sexual violence while Murad is a Yazidi human rights activist and survivor of sexual slavery.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee said it had awarded them the prize for their efforts to end the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war.

“Both laureates have made a crucial contribution to focusing attention on, and combating, such war crimes,” it said in its citation.

Mukwege leads the Panzi Hospital in the eastern city of Bukavu.

Opened in 1999, the clinic receives thousands of women each year, many of them requiring surgery from sexual violence.

Murad is an advocate for the Yazidi minority in Iraq and for refugee and women’s rights in general.

She was enslaved and raped by Islamic State fighters in Mosul in 2014.

The prize will be presented in Oslo on Dec. 10, the anniversary of the death of Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel, who founded the awards in his 1895 will.