Hibakusha in front of the Hiroshima A bomb dome.
This article was first published on openDemocracy 50.50 on 6 August 2015. It is republished here on the 71st anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing in which more than 140,000 people died.
After two prototype atomic bombs incinerated Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, the “Hibakusha” who survived launched an emotional appeal – “Never Again”. Having warned for years about the “hell on earth” they suffered, only to see nuclear armed states continue to develop and deploy further weapons, these Hibakusha are joining with humanitarian campaigners to demand that governments now negotiate a legally binding international treaty to ban and eliminate nuclear weapons.
