TOKYO (dpa-AFX) - Nihon Hidankyo, a Japanese movement of atomic bomb survivors from Hiroshima and Nagasaki, has won the Nobel Peace Prize for 2024.
Announcing the award Friday, the Norwegian Nobel Committee said it decided to award the coveted Nobel Prize to Nihon Hidankyo in recognition of its efforts to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons and for demonstrating through witness testimony that nuclear weapons must never be used again.
The survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, known as the Hibakusha, formed the global movement in response to the atomic bomb attacks of August 1945.
Its members have worked tirelessly to raise awareness about the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of using nuclear weapons. Gradually, a powerful international norm developed, stigmatizing the use of nuclear weapons as morally unacceptable. This norm has become known as 'the nuclear taboo'.
The testimonies of the Hibakusha have helped to generate and consolidate widespread opposition to nuclear weapons around the world by drawing on personal stories, creating educational campaigns based on their own experience, and issuing urgent warnings against the spread and use of nuclear weapons.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee has acknowledged that the extraordinary efforts of Nihon Hidankyo and other representatives of the Hibakusha have contributed greatly to the establishment of the nuclear taboo.
The committee noted that no nuclear weapon has been used in war in nearly 80 years, but at the same time, it is alarming that today this taboo against the use of nuclear weapons is under pressure.
It expressed concern that the nuclear powers are modernizing and upgrading their arsenals; new countries appear to be preparing to acquire nuclear weapons; and threats are being made to use nuclear weapons in ongoing warfare.
2025 will mark 80 years since two American atomic bombs killed an estimated 120,000 inhabitants of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. A comparable number died of burn and radiation injuries in the following months and years. Today's nuclear weapons have far greater destructive power, which can kill millions and would impact the climate catastrophically.
The Nobel Committee warned that a nuclear war could destroy the human civilization.
After the fates of the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were long concealed and neglected, in 1956, local Hibakusha associations along with victims of nuclear weapons tests in the Pacific formed the Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organisations. This name was shortened in Japanese to Nihon Hidankyo. It would become the largest and most influential Hibakusha organisation in Japan.
The Tokyo-based organization will get a cash award of 11 million Swedish kronor, or $1.05 million.
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