Never again: (Clockwise from top left) Taeko Oshioka, a member of Nihon Hidankyo, looking for visitors to sign a petition urging the Japanese government to sign and ratify the treaty of the prohibition of nuclear weapons, in front of the preserved Atomic Bomb Dome; demonstrators attending a protest in support of Palestinians in Gaza, echoing Nihon Hidankyo’s anti-nuclear armaments message; members of Nihon Hidankyo and atomic bomb survivors posing together for a press conference; paper cranes, known as a symbol of peace, seen at the office of Nihon Hidankyo after they won the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize; and a visitor praying in front of the Peace Statue at the Peace Park in Nagasaki. — Reuters/AFP/AP
The recipient of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize is a fast-dwindling group of atomic bomb survivors who are facing down the shrinking time they have left to convey the firsthand horror they witnessed 79 years ago.
Nihon Hidankyo, the Japanese organisation of survivors of the US atomic bombings on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, was awarded for its decades-long activism against nuclear weapons. The survivors, known as “hibakusha”, see the prize and the international attention as their last chance to get their message out to younger generations.
