OSLO: Japan's atomic bomb survivors' group Nihon Hidankyo accepted its Nobel Peace Prize on Tuesday, urging countries to abolish the weapons resurging as a threat 80 years after the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings. One of the three co-chairs of Nihon Hidankyo who accepted the prize, 92-year-old Nagasaki survivor Terumi Tanaka, demanded "action from governments to achieve" a nuclear-free world.
The prize was presented at a formal ceremony in Oslo's City Hall at a time when countries like Russia -- which has the world's largest nuclear arsenal — increasingly brandish the atomic threat. "I am infinitely saddened and angered that the 'nuclear taboo' threatens to be broken," Tanaka told the assembled dignitaries and guests, some clad in traditional Norwegian bunads or Japanese kimonos.
Nihon Hidankyo works tirelessly to rid the planet of the weapons of mass destruction, relying on testimonies from survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, known as "hibakusha". The US bombings of the two Japanese cities on August 6 and 9, 1945 killed 214,000 people, leading to Japan's surrender and the end of World War II. — AFP
Oman Observer is now on the WhatsApp channel. Click here
