Ethiopian Prime Minister Wins 2019 Nobel Peace Prize

Ethiopian Prime Minister, Abiy Ahmed has been awarded the 2019 Noble Peace Prize.

Ahmed was the prize for his efforts to “achieve peace and international cooperation.”

Under his leadership, the two-decade-long war between Ethiopia and Eritrea was brought to an end.

He was named as the winner of the 100th Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo.

The prize, worth nine million Swedish crowns (about £730,000; $900,000) will be awarded in Oslo in December.

A total of 301 candidates had been nominated for the prestigious award, including 223 individuals and 78 organisations.

There had been great speculation over who would win the prize. Under the Nobel Foundation’s rules, nomination shortlists are not allowed to be published for 50 years.

Reacting on the emergence of Ahmed, his office said on Friday that Ethiopia was proud of his win, hailing it as a testimony to his efforts to reform the nation and seek peace with Eritrea.

“We are proud as a nation,” his office wrote in a statement on Twitter, adding that it was a “timeless testimony to the… ideals of unity, co-operation and mutual co-existence that the Prime Minister has been consistently championing.”

Ahmed, before becoming prime minister in 2018 introduced massive liberalising reforms to Ethiopia, shaking up what was an extremely tightly controlled nation.

He freed thousands of opposition activists from jail and allowed exiled dissidents to return home. Most importantly, he signed a peace deal with Ethiopia’s neighbour Eritrea, ending a two-decade conflict.

But his reforms also lifted the lid on Ethiopia’s ethnic tensions, and the resulting violence forced some 2.5 million people from their homes