TOKYO – Leaders of the Japanese atomic bomb survivors’ group, Nihon Hidankyo, which recently won the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize, issued a stark warning on Saturday about the growing threat of nuclear war. They renewed their call for the global abolition of nuclear weapons, amid increasing international tensions and the specter of potential nuclear conflict.
Shigemitsu Tanaka, a survivor of the 1945 U.S. bombing of Nagasaki and co-head of Nihon Hidankyo, voiced grave concerns: “The international situation is getting progressively worse, and now wars are being waged as countries threaten the use of nuclear weapons. I fear that we as humankind are on the path to self-destruction. The only way to stop that is to abolish nuclear weapons.”
In awarding the group, the Norwegian Nobel Committee recognized the devastating impact of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings and praised Nihon Hidankyo’s decades-long advocacy for a nuclear-free world. The committee emphasized the relevance of their mission in the current global context but refrained from specifying individual nations.
The warning comes against the backdrop of rising tensions between global powers. Last month, Russian President Vladimir Putin signaled that Moscow might consider deploying nuclear weapons if Western countries provided Ukraine with long-range missiles capable of striking deep inside Russia.
As the world grapples with these challenges, the survivors’ call to abolish nuclear weapons takes on heightened urgency, serving as a powerful reminder of the catastrophic human cost of nuclear warfare.