About 140,000 people died in Hiroshima on August 6, 1945 and another 74,000 in the atomic bombing of Nagasaki three days later at the end of World War II. “The devastation wrought by nuclear weapons in Hiroshima and Nagasaki can never be repeated,” Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said at a ceremony in Hiroshima.
“Japan, the only nation to have suffered atomic bombings during the war, will continue its efforts for a nuclear-free world,” said Fumio Kishida, whose family is from Hiroshima.
A prayer for the victims
“The path to this goal is becoming increasingly difficult due to growing divisions within the international community over nuclear disarmament and the nuclear threat from Russia,” he said. “Given this situation, it is all the more important to reinvigorate international momentum towards the achievement of a nuclear-free world,” he stressed.
His comments echo those of UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, issued in a statement on the occasion of these commemorations, where he regrets that “some countries are once again waving the nuclear saber recklessly, threatening to use these tools of annihilation”. “Faced with these threats, the world community must speak with one voice. Any recourse to nuclear weapons is unacceptable”, added Antonio Guterres.
During the ceremony, thousands of people, including survivors, relatives, loved ones and foreign dignitaries from 111 countries (a record), prayed for the victims killed or injured in the bombardment and called for peace in the world.
Hiroshima did not invite Russia or Belarus
For the second year in a row, Hiroshima did not invite Russia or Belarus to attend the ceremony due to the war in Ukraine. Attendees, mostly dressed in black, prayed silently at 8:15 a.m. (2315 GMT Saturday), as the first nuclear weapon ever to be used in wartime was dropped on Hiroshima.
Kishida hosted the G7 summit in the city earlier this year, where he tried to make nuclear disarmament a priority, taking leaders of wealthier democracies to visit memorials and the Hiroshima Peace Park Museum .
These commemorations were preceded by the recent release in the United States of the film “Oppenheimer”, a biopic by Christopher Nolan on J. Robert Oppenheimer, one of the creators of the American atomic weapon which will strike Hiroshima and Nagasaki. No release date has been announced in Japan and the film may not screen there at all.