Japanese atomic bomb survivors’ group awarded Nobel Peace Prize

Copenhagen, Oct 11 (EFE).- The Nobel Peace Prize for 2024 was awarded Friday to Nihon Hidankyo, a Japanese atomic bomb survivors’ group.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee said the movement was given the prize “for its efforts to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons and for demonstrating through witness testimony that nuclear weapons must never be used again.”

Nihon Hidankyo represents the “Hibakusha”, the survivors of the two atomic bombs that the United States dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.

The awarding committee said the group had played a central role in establishing a global movement that has stigmatized the use of nuclear weapons as “morally unacceptable” and led to an international norm known as the “nuclear taboo.”

The survivors have driven global opposition to nuclear arms by sharing their personal stories through educational campaigns that highlight the dangers of spreading and using these destructive weapons.

“The Hibakusha help us to describe the indescribable, to think the unthinkable, and to somehow grasp the incomprehensible pain and suffering caused by nuclear weapons,” the committee said.

The issue is often addressed by the Nobel Peace Prize committee. The 2017 award was given to ICAN, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons.

The prize, which is worth 11 million Swedish crowns, will be presented in Oslo in December. EFE

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