New Delhi: The Norwegian Nobel Committee in Oslo today announced the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. The prize has been awarded to Nadia Murad and Denis Mukwege for their efforts to end the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war and armed conflict. The winners were chosen from among 216 individuals and 115 organisations that were nominated for the prestigious award.Nadia Murad, who comes from the Yazidi region of Iraq, is herself a victim of war crime. She is one of the 3,000 Yazidi girls and women who were victims of rape and abuse by the Islamic State. Having been repeatedly subjected to rape, Murad’s abusers also threatened to execute her if she did not convert to the inhuman, hateful version of Islam. Murad, who managed to escape from her captors after three months, was in 2016, named UN’s first Goodwill Ambassador for the Dignity of Survivors of Human Trafficking. In 2017, she also won the Vaclav Havel Human Rights Prize for her campaign to protect Yazidi people from the Islamic State group.Denis Mukwege, a physician from Congo, has earned the sobriquet of ‘Doctor Miracle’, having spent 20 years helping women recover from rape violence and trauma in the war-ridden eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. Denis Mukwege heads the Panzi Hospital in Bukavu, Congo, which has, since 1999, seen many women, victims of sexual violence. Many of these abuses have been a consequence of or have occurred in the long-lasting civil war in Congo, that has taken the lives of over six million citizens. The Nobel committee said that Mukwege has been “the foremost, most unifying symbol both nationally and internationally of the struggle to end sexual violence in war and armed conflict”.The physician Denis Mukwege, awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, has spent large parts of his adult life helping the victims of sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Dr. Mukwege and his staff have treated thousands of patients who have fallen victim to such assaults. pic.twitter.com/9CrNWfj7zu— The Nobel Prize (@NobelPrize) October 5, 2018Nadia Murad, awarded the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize, is the witness who tells of the abuses perpetrated against herself and others. She has shown uncommon courage in recounting her own sufferings and speaking up on behalf of other victims.#NobelPrize pic.twitter.com/NeF70ig09J— The Nobel Prize (@NobelPrize) October 5, 2018The prize will be presented in Oslo on December 10.