A Nigerian lawyer who helped secure the release of more than 100 schoolgirls kidnapped by Boko Haram was on Monday awarded one of the United Nations' top prizes. The UNHCR said Zannah Mustapha was given the annual Nansen award for his "crucial mediating" role as well as his work helping children affected by the long-running conflict.
Last year's recipients of the award were more than 2,000 volunteers who saved the lives of thousands of migrants trying to cross the Mediterranean to Europe. Mustapha, who is in his late-50s, said the award was unexpected but he was "exceedingly happy" to have been chosen. "I look forward to being a worthy ambassador... for such a noble award," he told AFP in an interview in the capital, Abuja.
Mustapha set up The Future Prowess Islamic Foundation School 10 years ago, which has since proved a lifeline for children in conflict-riven and impoverished northeast Nigeria. The primary school has grown from having just 36 children and a single classroom to 540 pupils - more than half of them girls - and four times as many on the waiting list.
Last year, a second school was opened near the first in the Borno state capital, Maiduguri, providing free education to 88 pupils displaced from their homes by the violence.