Hiroshima yesterday marked the 80th anniversary of the US atomic bombing of the western Japanese city, with many survivors expressing frustration about the growing support of global leaders for nuclear weapons as a deterrence.
With the number of survivors rapidly declining and their average age now exceeding 86, the anniversary is considered the last milestone event for many of them.
“There will be nobody left to pass on this sad and painful experience in 10 years or 20 years,” Minoru Suzuto, a 94-year-old survivor, said after he kneeled down to pray at the cenotaph. “That’s why I want to share [my story] as much as I can.”
Photo: AFP
The bombing of Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945, destroyed the city and killed 140,000 people. A second bomb dropped three days later on Nagasaki killed 70,000. Japan surrendered on Aug. 15, ending World War II and Japan’s nearly half-century of aggression in Asia.
Hiroshima Mayor Kazumi Matsui warned against a growing acceptance of military buildups and of using nuclear weapons for national security during Russia’s war in Ukraine and conflicts in the Middle East, with the US and Russia possessing most of the world’s nuclear warheads.
“These developments flagrantly disregard the lessons the international community should have learned from the tragedies of history,” Matsui said. “They threaten to topple the peacebuilding frameworks so many have worked so hard to construct.”
He urged younger generations to recognize that such “misguided policies” could cause “utterly inhumane” consequences for their future.
“We don’t have much time left, while we face a greater nuclear threat than ever,” said Nihon Hidankyo, a Japanese grassroots organization of survivors that won the Nobel Peace Prize last year for its pursuit of nuclear abolishment.
“Our biggest challenge now is to change, even just a little, nuclear weapons states that give us the cold shoulder,” the organization said in a statement.
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