The Norway Nobel Committee has decided to award the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize to Japan's Nihon Hidankyo organization.
The mass movement of survivors from the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, also known as Hibakusha, has been deemed worthy of the Peace Prize for their efforts to reach a world free of nuclear weapons and to testify that nuclear weapons should never be used again.
Next year marks 80 years since America's atomic bombings killed approximately 120,000 residents of the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Today's nuclear weapons possess tremendous destructive power. They are capable of killing millions of people and can have a catastrophic impact on the climate.
The fate of those who survived the hells of Hiroshima and Nagasaki has long been concealed and neglected. In 1956, local Hibakusha associations joined victims of nuclear weapon tests in the Pacific Ocean to form the Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations, abbreviated in Japanese as Nihon Hidankyo. This became the largest and most prestigious Hibakusha organization in Japan.
