UNESCO recognizes achievement in 2015
Merkel honored with peace prize for refugee policy
2/8/2023, 5:16 p.m
Germany took in more than a million refugees in 2015 when others closed themselves off. UNESCO honors ex-Chancellor Angela Merkel for her extraordinary humanitarian achievement. And at the ceremony in Africa, she knows who to give the award to.
Former Chancellor Angela Merkel received the Peace Prize from the UN cultural organization UNESCO in the Ivory Coast. With the award, the organization recognized Merkel’s refugee policy in 2015, when Germany took in more than 1.2 million refugees and other migrants. In her acceptance speech, Merkel referred to more and more trouble spots in the world and appealed for conflicts to be resolved peacefully. “Dialogue is the weapon of the strong, not the weak,” she said. Merkel dedicated the award to the volunteers who helped take in the refugees at the height of the crisis.
UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay presented the Chancellor with the award at a ceremony in the capital, Yamassoukro. “You showed courage at a time when others wanted to seal off Europe,” Azoulay said. The head of the African Union and President of Senegal, Macky Sall, called Merkel an “extraordinary stateswoman and humanist”. A special mention was also given to the work of Julienne Lusenge from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. She campaigns for victims of sexual violence in eastern Congo.
The prize is named after the former head of state of Ivory Coast, Félix Houphouët-Boigny. The Peace Prize was established in 1989 and has been awarded annually since 1991 to individuals or organizations that have made special efforts to promote, research or secure peace. The first winners were Nelson Mandela and Frederik Willem de Klerk, who were awarded after the abolition of apartheid in South Africa.
Most recently, the Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed was honored in 2019 for the peace agreement with neighboring Eritrea. The following year, however, he plunged his country into civil war. The prize was not awarded in 2020 and 2021 due to the corona pandemic.