Nobel Peace Prize Winner!

From BBC News:

Congolese gynaecologist Denis Mukwege is known as “Doctor Miracle” for his ability to repair through reconstructive surgery the horrific damage inflicted on women who have been raped.

The 63-year-old Congolese gynaecologist set up the Panzi hospital in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo city of Bukavu nearly 20 years ago – shortly after he had his first experience of treating a woman who had been raped and mutilated by armed men.

Dr Mukwege recounted the horrific injury the patient had suffered in a BBC interview, saying the woman had not only been raped but bullets had been fired into her genitals and thighs.

He, along with his colleagues, have since treated tens of thousands of victims.

Panzi hospital now cares for more than 3,500 women a year. Sometimes Dr Mukwege performs as many as 10 operations a day. …

In September 2012, in a speech at the UN, Dr Mukwege criticised President Joseph Kabila’s government and other countries for not doing enough to stop what he called “an unjust war that has used violence against women and rape as a strategy of war”.

The following month he was targeted by gunmen who broke into his home and briefly held his daughters hostage.

According to his organisation’s website, his trusted friend and security guard was killed during the attack.

He later fled with his family to Sweden, then to Belgium.

He returned home in 2013 following a campaign by local women who raised funds to pay for his return ticket.

“After that gesture, I couldn’t really say no. And also, I am myself determined to help fight these atrocities, this violence.”

“My life has had to change, since returning. I now live at the hospital and I take a number of security precautions, so I have lost some of my freedom,” he told the BBC’s Outlook programme in 2013.

Dr Mukwege currently lives under the permanent protection of UN peacekeepers at his hospital.

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Dr Mukwege was born in 1955 in Bukavu. He went to medical school across the border in Burundi and later studied gynaecology and obstetrics at the University of Angers in France.

He was inspired to become a doctor after numerous visits to see the sick with his preacher father.

He has received many other international awards, including the 2008 UN Human Rights Prize. He was named African of the Year in 2009.