On Hiroshima Day, UN calls for nuclear disarmament globally
Hiroshima on Saturday reminisced the atomic bombing on Japanese city 77 years ago. The memorial was attended by officials, including the head of the United Nations, where they warned the world against buildup of nuclear weapons amid growing fears of another nuclear attack on cards amid Russia’s war on Ukraine.
“Nuclear weapons are nonsense. They guarantee no safety — only death and destruction,” said U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres, who joined the prayer at the Hiroshima Peace Park marking the 77th memorial of Hiroshima atomic bombing, remembered as Hiroshima Day. “Three quarters of a century later, we must ask what we’ve learned from the mushroom cloud that swelled above this city in 1945,” he said. The memorial was attended by dozens of people, including ‘hibakusha’, young peace activists, Japan’s Prime Minister and other local authorities.
Remembering the fateful day 77 years ago
The United States, on August 6 1945, had dropped the world’s first atomic bomb on Hiroshima. The attack destroyed the city and killed 140,000 people. A second bomb was dropped by US three days later on Nagasaki, that killed another 70,000 people. On August 15, Japan surrendered, thereby ending World War II and about half-century of aggression in Asia by Japan.
New arms race is speeding up, warns UN chief
The UN Secretary General has underlined that “a new arms race is picking up speed” and world leaders are aggressively increasing their nuclear arms stockpile at a cost of hundreds of billions of dollars. He underlined that at present about 13,000 nuclear weapons are held across the world. “Crises with grave nuclear undertones are spreading fast — from the Middle East to the Korean peninsula, to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine… Humanity is playing with a loaded gun”, he cautioned.
In Hiroshima today, I paid tribute to the tens of thousands of people killed by atomic bombs 77 years ago.
— António Guterres (@antonioguterres) August 6, 2022
We cannot forget the lessons of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
We must act in their memory & wipe nuclear weapons off the face of the earth once and for all. pic.twitter.com/taMQFAjD92
UN Treaty on Non Proliferation of Nuclear weapons a “sign of hope”
The recent review of UN Treaty on Non Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons in New York was hailed by UN chief as a “sign of hope”. “Today, from this sacred space, I call on this Treaty’s members to work urgently to eliminate the stockpiles that threaten our future, to strengthen dialogue, diplomacy and negotiation, and to support my disarmament agenda by eliminating these devices of destruction”, he emphasized.
“We must keep the horrors of Hiroshima in view at all times, recognizing there is only one solution to the nuclear threat: not to have nuclear weapons at all”, the UN chief concluded.
