Nobel Peace Prize awarded to Japanese atom bomb survivors for campaign against nuclear weapons

 

The Peace Memorial Park in Hiroshima, Japan.
Source_Story by Alexander Smith

The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded Friday to a Japanese anti-nuclear weapon group, Nihon Hidankyo, that comprises atomic bomb survivors from Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The grassroots movement — also known as Hibakusha — was given the award “for its efforts to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons,” the Norwegian Nobel Committee said. “And for demonstrating, through witness testimony, that nuclear weapons must never be used again.”

The United States dropped nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II in 1945, killing an estimated 120,000 people in what was the only time such weapons have been used in a conflict. After the ensuing decadeslong nuclear anxiety of the Cold War, these world-ending armaments are once again causing global unease amid wars in Ukraine and the Middle East.

"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," the committee said. "At this moment in human history, it is worth reminding ourselves what nuclear weapons are: the most destructive weapons the world has ever seen."

That no weapons have been used in anger in 80 years is "an encouraging fact," something to which the grassroots Japanese movement has "contributed greatly," the Nobel Committee said. "It is therefore alarming that today this taboo against the use of nuclear weapons is under pressure."

Russian President Vladimir Putin has openly warned the West that he could use these bombs if the United States and its allies intervenes too much in the war in Ukraine.

North Korea is estimated to have dozens of warheads. And tensions are still bubbling between India and China, and India and Pakistan, all of which have their own arsenals.

Meanwhile Israel, which is widely believed to have nuclear weapons, is trading missile fire with Iran, which international monitors say is now capable of developing its own warheads.

In terms of conventional warfare, this peace prize was awarded in a year with more active conflicts than at any time since World War II. Geopolitics is dominated by the major wars in the Middle East and Europe, but Sudan is also riven by an ongoing civil conflict.

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com