The 2019 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Abiy Ahmed, the Ethiopian Prime Minister who helped end his country's 20-year war with neighboring Eritrea over disputed border territory that came at a huge financial and human cost to both countries.
Here are some of the key facts about Abiy.
IMAGE: Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed. Photograph: Tiksa Negeri/Reuters
1.
Born in Agaro in southern Ethiopia on August 15, 1976 to an Oromo Muslim father and an Amhara Christian mother.
2.
Abiy has a doctorate degree in peace and security issues from Addis Ababa University and a master's degree in transformational leadership from the University of Greenwich, London.
3.
As a teenager in 1990, he joined the armed struggle against the Marxist Derg regime.
4.
He speaks fluent Afan Oromo, Amharic and Tigrinya, as well as English.
5.
Abiy has served as a UN peacekeeper in Rwanda.
6.
He has served in the military and rose to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel, before becoming the founder and director of the country's Information Network and Security Agency, which is responsible for cyber-security in a country where the government has always exercised tight control over the internet.
7.
He is the first leader from Ethiopia's largest ethnic community, the Oromo, who have complained for decades of economic, cultural and political marginalisation.
8.
The 42-year-old Abiy also recently won plaudits for his role in helping to broker a power-sharing deal in neighboring Sudan, after a political crisis that led to the arrest of Omar al-Bashir, the country's ruler for almost three decades.
9.
In June, Abiy was targeted in an attack, with two people killed in an explosion at a rally held to show support for him.
10.
Entered politics as an ordinary OPDO member before joining the party's Executive Committee in 2015 and later on became the prime minister in 2018.
