New York ¨C Hibakusha, the survivors of the 1945 U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, 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 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 (NPT) 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-winning group 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.¡±
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