Japan’s Nihon Hidankyo on Tuesday accepted the Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of Japanese survivors of the two atomic bombs dropped on Japanese cities to end World War II.
The group of 30 atomic bombing survivors attended Tuesday’s award ceremony in Oslo, Norway, and three Hidankyo co-chairs accepted the award on the group’s behalf.
“We demand the immediate abolition of nuclear weapons as extremely inhumane weapons of mass killing, which must not be allowed to co-exist with humanity,” Hidankyo co-chair Terumi Tanaka said while accepting the award.
Tanaka, 92, survived the atomic bombing of Nagasaki on August 9, 1945.
The United States also dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. Those are the only two instances of such weapons being used in war.
“The deaths that I witnessed at that time could hardly be described as human deaths,” Tanaka said.
“There were hundreds of people suffering in agony, unable to receive any kind of medical attention,” Tanaka added. “I strongly felt that even in war, such killing and maiming must never be allowed to happen.”
The group was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for its global efforts to end the development and potential use of nuclear weapons at the same time Russia has threatened to use them if targeted by intercontinental ballistic missiles with a conventional warheads launched by Ukraine.
Tanaka said it’s not enough for the world to rely on assured mutual destruction as a deterrence to nuclear war and only total abolition of nuclear weapons will ensure they won’t be used again.
Officials at global peace advocate Greenpeace lauded the award recipients while cautioning against the increased likelihood that nuclear weapons will be used again.
“Greenpeace salutes the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize Laureates, Nihon Hidankyo, for their decades-long leadership in the struggle to eliminate nuclear weapons and expose its catastrophic consequences,” Greenpeace officials said in an online statement.
“Nihon Hidankyo has been on a lifelong mission for peace, playing a pivotal role in making nuclear weapons illegal under international law through the historic Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons that entered into force in 2021,” Greenpeace said.
Greenpeace called nuclear weapons the “ultimate doomsday devices” whose effects “cannot be fully erased or undone.”
“Especially today, as the testing and potential use of nuclear weapons is no longer considered taboo and is once again being contemplated, we must stand in solidarity with the Hibakusha and carry their legacy forward,” Greenpeace said while calling on all nations to sign the nuclear weapons treaty.
Hibakusha is the name given to the Japanese survivors of the atomic bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima in 1945. (UPI)
