Women's rights activist Yanar Mohammed  MADRE

In 2016, she was awarded Norway's Rafto Prize for human rights for her efforts to help minorities and women subjected to sexual abuse in Iraq.

BAGHDAD: Prizewinning Iraqi women's rights activist Yanar Mohammed was shot dead on Monday in Baghdad, her organisation said.

"At 09:00 am (0600 GMT), two gunmen on a motorcycle opened fire on her outside her residence," the Organisation of Women's Freedom in Iraq (OWFI) announced.

Mohammed was seriously injured, "and despite being taken to the hospital and efforts to save her, she succumbed to her wounds".

OWFI urged the authorities to track down the perpetrators.

Mohammed co-founded OWFI in 2003 to provide protection to women victims of violence.

In 2016, she was awarded Norway's Rafto Prize for human rights for her efforts to help minorities and women subjected to sexual abuse in Iraq.

The Rafto Foundation said it was "deeply shocked by this brutal attack on one of the most courageous human rights defenders of our time".

"The assassination represents not only an attack on Yanar Mohammed as a person, but also on the fundamental values she dedicated her life to defending: women's freedom, democracy, and universal human rights," the foundation added.