Congolese Gynaecologist Wins Nobel Peace Prize

Denis Mukwege, a Congolese gynaecologist has been awarded the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize.

The doctor was awarded for his work in treating thousands of rape victims in the DRC many of them war victims.

Mukwege has won a number of international prizes including the 2008 UN Human Rights Prize.

He was also named African of the Year in 2009.

Mukwege was awarded alongside Nadia Murad a Yazidi woman tortured and raped by Islamic State militants in Iraq.

Murad later became the face of a campaign to free the Yazidi people.

The announcement was made in Olso Norway on Friday.

The Nobel committee chair Berit Reiss-Andersen said the duo were awarded for “efforts to end the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war.”

The committee chair  further said the pair both made a “crucial contribution to focusing attention on and combating, war crimes.”

Ms Murad was also named the UN’s first goodwill ambassador for survivors of human trafficking.

Earlier this week a Canadian woman won the Nobel Prize in Physics for the first time in 55 years.

Donna Strickland was awarded for her work in the field of laser physics.

She shares this year’s award with Arthur Ashkin from U.S and Gerard Mourou from France.

Drs Mourou and Strickland paved the way for the shortest and most intense laser pulses ever created. They developed a technique called Chirped Pulse Amplification (CPA).

The technique is used in laser therapy targeting cancer and in corrective laser eye surgeries.

Donna Strickland is only the third woman to win a Nobel Prize in Physics.

Marie Curie was awarded in 1903 for her research into radioactivity.

Maria Geoppert-Mayer was awarded in 1963 for her discoveries in the nuclei of atoms.

The award is worth a total of nine million Swedish Kroner ($998,618).