The News
Nihon Hidankyo, a Japanese group of survivors of the 1945 atomic bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, won the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday.
The organization was lauded by the Norwegian Nobel Committee for its ”efforts to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons and for demonstrating through witness testimonies that nuclear weapons must never be used again.”
The World War II use of atomic weapons on Japan has received renewed political significance this year: Nagasaki refused to invite Israel to commemorations marking the city being bombed, leading to several Western envoys withdrawing from the event.
Atomic-bomb survivors, known as hibakusha, have also criticized Japan’s own government for what they see as Tokyo’s growing militarization even as successive prime ministers have pledged to work towards a nuclear-free world.