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80 years since the bombing of Hiroshima

2025-08-06 07:53:00, Kosova & Bota CNA

A silent prayer was held in Japan on Wednesday morning, marking the 80th anniversary of the United States dropping the atomic bomb on the city of Hiroshima.

Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba attended the ceremony on Wednesday, along with officials from around the world.

"Japan is the only nation to have suffered an atomic bombing in war," Hiroshima Mayor Kazumi Matsui said at the city's Peace Memorial Park. "The Japanese government represents a people who aspire to true and lasting peace."

World War II ended with the surrender of Japan after the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which occurred within a few days of each other.

The bombs killed more than 200,000 people - some from the immediate explosion and others from radiation sickness and burns.

The legacy of the weapons continues to haunt survivors today.

"My father was badly burned and blinded by the blast. His skin was hanging off his body - he couldn't even hold my hand," Hiroshima survivor Shingo Naito told the BBC. He was six years old when the bomb hit his city, killing his father and two younger siblings.

Mr. Naito has shared his story with a group of students in Hiroshima, who are turning his memories of the tragedy into art.

In 2024, Nihon Hidankyo, a Japanese group of atomic bomb survivors, won the Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts to free the world from nuclear weapons.

In a speech on Wednesday, Hiroshima Mayor Matsui warned of a "growing trend towards the build-up of military forces around the world" and "the idea that nuclear weapons are essential for national defense."

"These developments flagrantly ignore the lessons that the international community should have learned from the tragedies of history," he said. "They threaten to tear down the peace-building structures that so many people have worked so hard to build."

Matsui said the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, which aims to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and promote the peaceful use of nuclear energy, was "on the verge of malfunctioning."

He also called on the Japanese government to ratify the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons - an international agreement banning nuclear weapons that came into force in 2021.

More than 70 countries have ratified the treaty, but nuclear powers such as the US and Russia have opposed it, pointing to the deterrent function of nuclear arsenals.

Japan has also rejected such a ban, arguing that its security has been enhanced by US nuclear weapons.

The nuclear issue is a divisive one in Japan. On the streets leading to the Peace Memorial Park, there were small protests calling for the abolition of nuclear weapons.

Satoshi Tanaka, another atomic bomb survivor who suffered from multiple cancers from radiation exposure, said that seeing the bloodshed in Gaza and Ukraine today brings back memories of his own suffering.

"Seeing the mountains of rubble, the destroyed cities, the children and women fleeing in panic, it all brings back memories of what I experienced," he told the BBC. "We live next to nuclear weapons that could wipe out humanity many times over."

"The most urgent priority is to push back the leaders of nuclear-armed countries. The people of the world must become even more outraged, raise their voices louder and take massive action."/ CNA, translated by BBC