A minute of silence took place in Hiroshima on Wednesday at the exact time of the atomic bomb on the Japanese city 80 years ago, during a ceremony bringing together a hundred countries, in a world marked by the Russian-American tensions.
On August 6, 1945 at 8:15 a.m., the United States dropped an atomic bomb above Hiroshima, killing around 140,000 people. Three days later, an identical bomb struck Nagasaki, causing the death of around 74,000 other people. These strikes, which precipitated the end of the Second World War, are the only occurrences where nuclear weapons were used in wartime.
While many participants placed crowns in front of the commemorative cenotaph, where a basin is lit, Hiroshima urged the world to give up atomic weapons.
“The United States and Russia have 90% of world nuclear warheads and, in the context of the invasion of Ukraine by Russia and tensions in the Middle East, there is an accelerated trend in military strengthening,” deplored the mayor of the city, Kazumi Matsui. “Some leaders accept the idea that +nuclear weapons are essential to their national defense +, obviously ignoring the lessons that the international community should have drawn from history. They threaten to undermine peacebuilding frameworks, “he added.
Kazumi Matsui had urged Donald Trump last month to go to Hiroshima, when the American president had compared the recent air strikes against Iran with atomic bombing of 1945.
“Our country, the only nation to have undergone atomic bombing in wartime, is responsible for taking the lead in international efforts for a world without nuclear weapons,” Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba insisted.
“Living witnesses”
Representatives of 120 countries and regions, as well as the European Union, attended the ceremony on Wednesday in Hiroshima, according to municipal officials. France was represented by number two of the embassy. Major nuclear states such as Russia, China and Pakistan are however absent. Iran, accused of trying to acquire the bomb, was to be represented.
Unlike its habit, Japan said it did not “choose its guests” for these commemorations but has “notified” all countries and regions. Thus, Palestine and Taiwan, which Tokyo does not officially recognize, announced their presence there for the first time.
On Saturday, Nagasaki also expects a record number of countries present to its own commemorations, notably with Russia, which must attend for the first time since its invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
“In this period of growing tensions and conflicts”, Hiroshima and Nagasaki remain “living witnesses of the deep horrors caused by nuclear weapons,” Pope Leo XIV said on Wednesday.
Today, Hiroshima is a prosperous metropolis of 1.2 million inhabitants, but the ruins of a building surmounted by the metal skeleton of a dome in the city center recall the horror of the attack.
At dawn Wednesday, people visited the cenotaph to pray. Among them, Takako Hirano, 69, who lost his parents from the nuclear shot: “Atomic bombing must never reproduce (…) The inhabitants of Hiroshima do their best to transmit their messages (of peace) and testify to the endured suffering”, she underlines.
“People are still suffering”
“My parents and grandparents were victims of the bomb. My grandfather died shortly after, while my father and mother died after developing cancer “and 80 years later,” people are still suffering, “said Yoshie Yokoyama, 96, who came in a wheelchair with her grandson Hiroki Yokoyama. The latter comments: “I feel the need to listen more, to transmit his story to our children”.
Nihon Hidankyo, a group of bomb survivors who received the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize, urges states to eliminate nuclear weapons based on the testimonies of the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, called “Hibakusha”.
In March, according to the Japanese Ministry of Health, there were 99,130 Hibakusha, whose average age was 86 years. “If their number decreases each year, their eternal message of peace will never leave us (…) inhabitants of Hiroshima, you have not only rebuilt a city: you have given hope and nourished the vision of a world without nuclear weapons”, salutes in a press release the UN secretary general, Antonio Guterres.
Yukiyo Kokufu, 75, confides that his mother suffered terrible burns, while her older brother, an 18 -month -old baby, was killed immediately. “I really hope that there will never be any new hibakusha (…) People talk about nuclear deterrence, I hope everyone will think more about achieving peace,” he said.
