Ethiopia Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has won the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize for “for his efforts to achieve peace and international cooperation, and in particular for his decisive initiative to resolve the border conflict with neighboring Eritrea.”
The Nobel committee said during its announcement Friday that the coveted prize was also meant to recognize all the stakeholders working for peace and reconciliation in Ethiopia and in the East and Northeast African regions.
Ahmed clinched a peace deal with Eritrea President Isaias Afwerki last year that ended 20 years of the “no peace, no war” stalemate between the two countries.
According to TIME, at least 70,000 people were killed since the border disputes began in 1998, five years after Eritrea gained independence from Ethiopia.
Although thousands of political prisoners have been freed since Ahmed took office in April 2018, Ethiopia’s internal issues still divide the country.
The Nobel committee acknowledged this in its announcement saying that even if much work remains in the unstable country, Ahmed had initiated important reforms that give “many citizens hope for a better life and a brighter future.”
The African country faces elections next year.
_____
Follow us on Twitter at @thesignalng
Copyright 2019 SIGNAL. Permission to use portions of this article is granted provided appropriate credits are given to www.signalng.com and other relevant source.
