UPDATE - Nobel Peace Prize awarded to Denis Mukwege, Nadia Murad

UPDATES WITH MORE INFO ON PEACE LAUREATES

By Satuk Bugra Kutlugun

ANKARA (AA) - The 2018 Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to Denis Mukwege and Nadia Murad, the Norwegian Nobel Committee announced in Oslo early Friday.

Mukwege, a Congolese doctor, and Murad, an Ezidi campaigner from Iraq, were awarded "for their efforts to end the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war and armed conflict," the committee said on Twitter.

The official Nobel Prize account on Twitter said that following her escape from the Daesh terrorist group, Murad chose to speak openly about what she had suffered .

"In 2016, at the age of just 23, she was named the UN’s first Goodwill Ambassador for the Dignity of Survivors of Human Trafficking," it said about Murad, now 25.

Congolese Peace Laureate Mukwege’s bedrock principle is that “justice is everyone’s business,” the committee said.

"The 2018 Peace Laureate is the foremost, most unifying symbol, both nationally and internationally, of the struggle to end sexual violence in war and armed conflicts."

Mukwege, a 63-year-old physician, 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 fell victim to such assaults.

The committee said they have not yet been in contact with the winners.