'Napalm Girl' Kim Phuc honoured for activism

Kim Phuc, immortalised in a photo showing her running, crying and naked, with burns from napalm during the Vietnam War, has been honoured for her peace work.

Vietnam war survivor Kim Phuc Phan Thi (L) receives the International Peace Prize from Prince Edward Duke of Kent 'Dresden Prize'. Source: AAP

Kim Phuc, known as the "Napalm Girl" in an iconic 1972 Vietnam War photo, is receiving a 10,000 euro ($A15,963) award in Germany for her work for peace.

Organisers of the Dresden Prize say the 55-year-old, who now lives in Canada, is being honoured for her support of Unesco and children wounded in war, and for speaking out publicly against violence and hatred.

Vietnamese Kim Phuc Phan Thi receives the 10th International Peace Prize from Prince Edward as the US-American photographer James Nachtwey applauds. Source: AAP

Past recipients of the prize include former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and American civil rights activist Tommie Smith.

Phuc was nine when a South Vietnamese plane dropped napalm bombs on her village, believing it harboured enemy North Vietnamese troops.

The scene of Phuc running down a road crying, naked and with burns across her body was captured by photographer Nick Ut, winning a Pulitzer Prize in 1973.

In this prize-winning photo dated June 8, 1972 a nine-year-old Kim Phuc and her relatives flee in the wake of an aerial napalm attack. Source: AAP