Hibakusha Call for Nuclear Weapons Abolition in N.Y.

New York, April 26 (Jiji Press)–Hibakusha, the survivors of the 1945 U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan, called for the abolition of nuclear weapons in a demonstration in New York on Sunday, yelling “No more Hiroshima, No more Nagasaki.” More than 200 hibakusha and other people including children of the atomic bomb sufferers and activists marched for a kilometer to the U.N. headquarters in Midtown Manhattan one day ahead of the start of the 2026 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty review conference, according to the U.S. organizer of the demonstration. In a speech at a rally before the march, Jiro Hamasumi, the 80-year-old secretary-general of 2024 Nobel Peace Prize-winner Nihon Hidankyo, or the Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations, said, “We must not send our children and grandchildren, as well as people all over the world, into an atomic bomb hell.” The review conference will be “a turning point” for the treaty, he added. Stressing that “now the time we have with hibakusha is limited,” Yua Saitsu, a high school student peace ambassador from Nagasaki Prefecture, said, “I am becoming … the one who carries on what hibakusha have and I would like to invite you to join me.” Shinobu Yamashita from Osaka Prefecture, who was exposed to radiation in the Hiroshima bombing when she was two years old, said, “I feel that the NPT’s value has gradually been declining.” “I hope that the treaty is vitalized a bit more and works properly toward the abolition of nuclear weapons.” END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]