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"We know the horror of nuclear weapons because we know what happened in Hiroshima"...
Conflicts erupting around the world, including in Gaza, are raising the possibility of a nuclear war.
This is the warning that came from the leaders of the group of survivors of the atomic bomb in Japan, who were awarded this year with the Nobel Peace Prize.
Shigemitsu Tanaka, a survivor of the 1945 Nagasaki bombing and co-leader of the group, said that " the international situation is getting progressively worse and wars are now being waged as countries threaten to use nuclear weapons ."
" I am afraid that we as humans are on the path of self-destruction. The only way to stop this is to abolish nuclear power ," he told reporters.
Nagasaki was the second Japanese city to be hit by an American nuclear bomb on August 9, 1945, killing at least 74,000 people. Three days earlier, the American bombing of Hiroshima had killed 140,000 people.
Hiroshima residents said Saturday they hoped the world would never forget the bombing of 1945 - now more than ever.
Susumu Ogawa, 84, was five years old when the bomb annihilated Hiroshima 79 years ago, and many of his family members were among the tens of thousands killed.
" My mother, my aunt, my grandfather and my grandmother all died ," Ogawa told AFP news agency.
" All nuclear weapons in the world must be abandoned. We know the horror of nuclear weapons, because we know what happened in Hiroshima ," said Ogawa.
What is happening now in the Middle East, with Israel's wars in Gaza and Lebanon and escalating tensions with Iran, saddens him.
Russian President Vladimir Putin signaled in September that Moscow would consider responding with nuclear weapons if the US and its allies allow Ukraine to strike deep inside Russia with long-range Western missiles.
" Why do people fight each other?... Hurting each other will not bring anything good ," said Ogawa.
On Saturday, Japanese demonstrators gathered in support of Palestinians in Gaza at the preserved Atomic Bomb Dome in Hiroshima's Peace Memorial Park.
Toshiyuki Mimaki, the group's co-head and a Hiroshima bombing survivor, said Friday that the situation for children in Gaza is similar to that of Japan at the end of World War II.
" In Gaza, bleeding children are being held by their parents. It's like in Japan 80 years ago ," Mimaki said at a press conference in Tokyo.
Visiting the Hiroshima memorial, Kiyoharu Bajo, 69, said he hoped the Nobel prize would help "further spread the experiences of atomic bomb survivors around the world" and persuade others to visit.
" I was born 10 years after the atomic bomb was dropped, so there were many atomic bomb survivors around me. I felt the incident as something familiar to me. But for the future, it will be a problem ," he said. /Adapted "Pamphlet" from "Al Jazera"
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