Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos won the 2016 Noble Peace prize.
The Norwegian committee decided to award the 2016 peace prize to the Colombian president for his work toward bringing peace to his country, reported The Guardian.
Among the contenders were Greek Islanders from Lesbos who rescued thousands of refugees and The Syrian Civil Defence organisation, known as the White Helmets, a group of some 3,000 volunteers who sift through rubble after bombings looking for survivors in the ongoing hostilities in that country.
The Syrian White Helmets congratulated the president of Colombia and wished the people of that country peace.
Congratulations to the people and President of Columbia. We sincerely wish them peace. @NobelPrize
— The White Helmets (@SyriaCivilDef) October 7, 2016
The individual contenders include the likes of German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Nadia Murad Basee Taha, a Yazidi woman who has been an outspoken advocate for ISIS victims and a critic of refugee policies after being abducted and abused by the militant group.
In 2015, the Noble Peace Prize was awarded to the Tunisian National Dialogue Quartet, a group that helped guide the country through a constitutional crisis and laid the groundwork for a new democratic government following the 2011 Arab Spring.