8 August 2022 /
77TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE ATOMIC BOMBING OF HIROSHIMA /
UN CHIEF CALLS FOR GLOBAL NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT /
“Nuclear weapons are non-sense. They guarantee no safety – only death and destruction. Three quarters of a century later, we must ask what we’ve learned from the mushroom cloud that swelled above this city in 1945,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres joined the thousands at Peace Park in Hiroshima to mark the 77th anniversary of the world’s first atomic bombing that killed thousands in 1945.
“A new arms race is picking up speed and world leaders are enhancing stockpiles at a cost of hundreds of billions of dollars with almost 13,000 nuclear weapons currently held in arsenals around the world. Crises with grave nuclear undertones are spreading fast — from the Middle East to the Korean peninsula, to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine… Humanity is playing with a loaded gun”, the UN Chief cautioned.
Hiroshima mayor Kazum Matsui was very much critical of the present world scenario in the backdrop of Russia’s military actions and the China-US conflicts.
“These errors betray humanity’s determination, born of our experiences of war, to achieve a peaceful world free from nuclear weapons. To accept the status quo and abandon the ideal of peace maintained without military force is to threaten the very survival of the human race.”
The Peace Bell sounded at Peace Park in Hiroshima and the people including the Prime Minister Fumio Kishida observed a moment of silence to mark the day, the bomb US B-29 war plane Enola Gay, nicknamed “Little Boy” dropped on 6 August 1945 at 8.15 am.
The Hiroshima massacre was followed by US bombing of Nagasaki on 9 August, surrendering Japan ending World War II.
Later the Secretary-General met five surviving victims of the atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, known as Hibakusha, reports UN News on 5 August, 2022.
“The world must never forget what happened here. The memory of those who died — and the legacy of those who survived — will never be extinguished”
“Take the nuclear option off the table — for good. It’s time to proliferate peace.
Heed the message of the hibakusha: “No more Hiroshimas! No more Nagasakis!” – UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres
