Nobel Prize-winner Dr Denis Mukwege who was attacked by gunmen has launched another challenge against the Democratic Republic Of Congo’s leadership.
He will be running for president in elections due in December, over a decade after he was attacked in 2012 by gunmen while running to be president of his country. Monday.
Known as “Dr Miracle”, the 68-year-old rose to global fame for performing reconstructive surgery on women who had been raped in the country’s war-torn east.
His hospital has so far treated more than 50,000 survivors of sexual violence, while he has cemented himself as one of the world’s foremost experts in his field.
Dr Mukwege was born in 1955 in Bukavu, a city in eastern DR Congo.
He had decided to become a Doctor after numerous visits to see sick members of the community with his preacher father.
He began his training at a medical school across the border in Burundi, later studying gynaecology and obstetrics at the University of Angers in France.
In 1998, he set up a clinic in his home city, Bukavu.
He initially intended Panzi hospital to be for maternal health, with his team treating new or expecting mothers.
His plan however changed after the oubreak of war with more and more women coming to the clinic with gruesome injuries from sexual violence committed by various armed groups.
In 2013, Dr Mukwege told the BBC that rape in eastern DR Congo was part of a “strategy” to force communities away from their land and resources.
For three decades the region has been wracked by conflict, with numerous armed groups battling for gold and other valuable resources.
Different militias have been accused of carrying out indiscriminate rape – tens of thousands of women are thought to have been attacked over the course of the conflict, Amnesty International has reported.
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