to heal the sick people for whom his father prayed. After graduating with a medical degree from the University of Burundi in 1983, Mukwege worked as a pediatrician in the rural Lemera Hospital near Bukavu. However, after seeing female patients who often suffered from pain, genital lesions, and obstetric fistulas after giving birth due to an absence of proper care, he decided to study gynaecology and obstetrics at the University of Angers, France, obtaining his masters and completing his medical residency in 1989. His education was mainly financed by the Swedish Pentecostal mission. On 24 September 2015, Mukwege earned a PhD from Université libre de Bruxelles for his thesis on traumatic fistulas in the Eastern Region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Career After completion of his studies in France (1989), Mukwege returned to work at the Lemera Hospital. At the beginning of the First Congo War, the Lemera hospital was attacked, his patients and co-workers were killed and the hospital ransacked. Dr. Mukwege fled to Bukavu where he founded the Panzi Hospital in 1999. Its construction was mainly financed by Swedish Christian aid organizations and the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency. The Panzi Hospital has continued to enjoy support from the Swedish Pentecostal Mission's development cooperation organization PMU. Since its foundation, Panzi Hospital has treated more than 82,000 patients with complex gynecological damage and trauma. An estimated 60 percent of these injuries result from instances of sexual violence being used as a weapon of war, with most of the patients of the time coming from conflict zones. Mukwege has described how his patients arrived at the hospital sometimes naked, usually in horrific condition. When he observed that different armed groups were using genital damaging as a weapon of war during the conflict of the late 1990s, Mukwege devoted himself to reconstructive surgery to help female victims of sexual violence. The German Institute for Medical Mission (DIFAEM) has been supporting Mukwege's work with funds and medicines. In 2008, the non-profit Panzi Foundation DRC was created in order to support the work of Panzi Hospital with "legal assistance, psycho-social support and socio-economic programmes." A Panzi Foundation USA was later founded to promote fundraising in the United States of America, and encourage investment in the Panzi Hospital and Foundations. In 2016 the Mukwege Foundation was created, to promote the aims of the Panzi Hospital and Foundations worldwide and "advocate for an