Activists Denis Mukwege and Nadia Murad Win 2018 Nobel Peace Prize

Congolese doctor Denis Mukwege and Yazidi campaigner Nadia Murad have been awarded the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize.

Denis Mukwege, 63, and Nadia Murad, 25, were jointly awarded the accolade for their efforts to end the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war and armed conflict.

Mukwege is a gynecologist who has treated thousands of women with extreme sexual injuries perpetrated by rebel groups in the Democratic Republic of Congo. 

Murad is a Kurdish human rights activist from Iraq. She is one of an estimated 3,000 Yazidi girls and women who were victims of gang rape and other abuses by the Islamic State. Yazidis are a Kurdish religious minority group.

She became an activist for the Yazidi people after escaping IS in November 2014, campaigning to help put an end to human trafficking and calling on the world to take a tougher line on rape as a weapon of war.

Mukwege established a world-class facility to treat survivors of sexual violence in Bukavu, a city in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.

He and his colleagues are said to have treated about 30,000 rape victims, developing great expertise in the treatment of serious injuries sustained during sex assaults that were carried out as a weapon of war.

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