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By Brendan Cole
Senior Reporter
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The world should abandon nuclear deterrence, the mayor of Hiroshima has said at a ceremony marking the 80th anniversary since his city was destroyed by an American atomic bomb.
Kazumi Matsui warned on Wednesday that the conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East had contributed to a growing acceptance of nuclear weapons and raised the prospect of not learning from the devastation that such arms cause.
Why It Matters
A U.S. B-29 bomber dropped the atomic weapon "Little Boy" on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. Three days later, the nearby city of Nagasaki was destroyed by a second American atomic bomb and WWII ended with Japan's surrender.
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The 80th anniversary of the bombings has focused minds on the legacy of the weapons as Russia continues to issue nuclear threats linked to its war in Ukraine. It also comes amid conflict in the Middle East that prompted the U.S. to target Iran's underground nuclear facilities to prevent the development of an atomic bomb.
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What To Know
Dignitaries, survivors and representatives attended a commemoration on Wednesday at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park.
During the ceremony, Matsui said the war Russia started in Ukraine and the conflict in the Middle East had contributed to a growing acceptance of nuclear weapons.
He said that they threatened the lessons learnt about the horrors of atomic bombs and called on younger people to understand the nuclear option could cause "utterly inhumane" consequences for their futures.
Matsui also said that people must work harder to ensure that nuclear weapons "be abolished for a genuinely peaceful world," The Guardian reported.
His comments were met with applause, and doves were released in a ceremony considered the last chance for significant numbers of survivors of the attack, which number just under 100,000, to describe the events first hand.
The other personal details of 4,940 registered survivors who died in the past year were added to a registry inside the cenotaph, bringing the number of deaths attributed to the Hiroshima bombing to almost 350,000.
Japanese media reported that Russia did not send an official, but its ally, Belarus, did attend for the first time in four years and Taiwanese and Palestinian representatives were there for the first time.
What People Are Saying
Kazumi Matsui, mayor of Hiroshima: "Policymakers in some countries even accept the idea that 'nuclear weapons are essential for national defense…take to heart the peace-loving spirit of Hiroshima, then begin immediately discussing a security framework based on trust through dialogue."
Yoshie Yokoyama, 96, told reporters her parents and grandparents had died from the Hiroshima attack: "My parents-in-law also died, so my husband couldn't see them again when he came back from battlefields after the war. People are still suffering."
U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres in a statement: "The very weapons that brought such devastation to Hiroshima and Nagasaki are once again being treated as tools of coercion."
What Happens Next
Nagasaki Memorial Day will take place on Saturday and somber reflections of the 80th anniversary of the atomic bombings are likely to continue, as will warnings such as by Guterres about nuclear saber rattling.
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