TopWorld

Nobel Peace Prize for anti-rape activists Nadia Murad and Denis Mukwege

Photo: Getty Images

 

The 2018 Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to campaigners against rape in warfare Nadia Murad and Denis Mukwege, the BBC reports.

Ms Murad is a Yazidi woman who was tortured and raped by Islamic State militants and later became the face of a campaign to free the Yazidi people.

Mr Mukwege is a Congolese gynaecologist who, along with his colleagues, has treated tens of thousands of victims.

Some 331 individuals and organisations were nominated for the prestigious peace award this year.

The winners announced in the Norwegian capital Oslo on Friday won the award for their “efforts to end the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war”, Berit Reiss-Andersen, the Nobel committee chair, said.

The pair both made a “crucial contribution to focusing attention on, and combating, such war crimes,” Ms Reiss-Andersen added.

Nadia Murad visited Armenia in April 2016 to participate in the Second Global Forum Against the Crime of Genocide.

She was received by then Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian along with survivors of genocides and crimes against humanity from Cambodia, Rwanda and Iraq.

At the meeting Nadia Murad presented the violence against Yazidis and the story of the barbaric killing of her family. She asked for Armenia’s support in raising awareness about the issue.

Murad said in an interview with Public Radio of Armenia that the teh Yazidi Genocide would have not happened, had the world recognized the Armenian Genocide.

In January 2018 Nadia Murad welcomed the recognition of the Yezidi Genocide by the Armenian parliament, describing it as “a historic fact.”

Show More
Back to top button