The UN today hailed this year's Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos, for his political courage and voiced hope the award would boost his country's troubled peace process.<br/><br/>The UN rights Chief Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein, would obviously hope that this gives a big boost to the peace process which has been going through a bit of a roller coaster in the past two weeks. <br/><br/>Today's announcement by the Norwegian Nobel Committee came as a surprise after Colombian voters rejected the terms of a historic deal Santos reached last month with FARC rebel chief Rodrigo Londono, alias Timoleon "Timochenko" Jimenez, after nearly four years of talks.<br/><br/>The Colombia conflict has killed more than 260,000 people and left 45,000 missing over five decades. It has also forced some seven million people to flee their homes, displacing them either inside the country or prompting them to become refugees.

The Norwegian Nobel committee has decided to award the Nobel Peace Prize for 2016 to Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos for his resolute efforts to bring the country's more than 50-year-long civil war to an end.<br/><br/>Committee chairwoman Kaci Kullmann Five said the aim was to encourage peace efforts in the war-torn country, which are now in real danger of collapse. The committee said the award was also a tribute to the Colombian people who had not given up hope of a just peace as well as to the families of the countless victims of the war.<br/><br/>The Colombia conflict has killed more than 260,000 people and left 45,000 missing over five decades, drawing in several leftist guerrilla groups, right-wing paramilitaries and drug gangs.