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Hiroshima’s 80th Commemoration Sees Record International Attendance as Survivors Urge Nuclear Disarmament

Dwindling hibakusha delivered urgent testimony on preserving their firsthand accounts to warn against nuclear escalation in the context of Japan’s reliance on U.S. deterrence

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Overview

  • Approximately 55,000 participants from a record 120 countries gathered at Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park for the 80th-anniversary ceremony.
  • Survivors, whose average age now exceeds 86, appealed for global leaders to preserve hibakusha testimonies before they vanish.
  • EU High Representative Kaja Kallas and Germany’s foreign minister reaffirmed support for the Non-Proliferation Treaty, the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty and New START extensions.
  • Japan’s government declined to sign or observe the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, citing its security dependence on the U.S. nuclear umbrella.
  • Conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East have reinvigorated deterrence arguments and deepened public debate over the bombing’s moral and strategic legacy.