Children pray as lanterns float on the river during Saturday’s 71st anniversary activities, commemorating the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.
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A peace bell tolled at 8.15am local time, the exact moment the United States warplane dropped the bomb.
In Japan, the mayor of Hiroshima also urged world leaders to emulate Mr Obama and visit the city.
“Seventy one years ago in Hiroshima city a single bomb took more than 140,000 lives”.
According to a press release, 2016 has seen important steps forward in the fight for the abolition of nuclear weapons globally.
“I expect him to join with President Obama and display leadership in this endeavor”, he said of Abe.
Obama was the first sitting USA leader to make such a trip. A world without nuclear weapons, Matsui said, “would manifest the noble pacifism of the Japanese Constitution”.
Some 30 participants took a moment of silence with candles in their hands, at the exact time when the USA atomic bomb was dropped on the morning of August 6, 1945, Japan time.
In the peace declaration, Hiroshima Mayor Kazumi Matsui called for action toward the complete abolition of nuclear weapons and global co-operation, quoting from the statement made by U.S. President Barack Obama when he became the first sitting U.S. president to visit Hiroshima in May. Japan surrendered six days later.
More than 300,000 of the “hibakusha”, or survivors, have died since, including 5,511 in the past year.
The story of Hiroshima is not simply a story about the first use of nuclear weapons.
Nowadays, a small number of countries possess nuclear weapons: the United States, Russia, Great Britain, France, China, India, Pakistan and North Korea. “Such fatalism is a deadly adversary, for if we believe that the spread of nuclear weapons is inevitable, then in some way we are admitting to ourselves that the use of nuclear weapons in inevitable”.
Hiroshima Aftermath Hiroshima after the atom bomb explosion.
The average age of the survivors is now over 80 years. He added “One nuclear weapon exploded in one city – be it NY or Moscow, Islamabad or Mumbai, Tokyo or Tel Aviv, Paris or Prague – could kill hundreds of thousands of people”.
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Prove continued, “Now a solid majority of countries in a special UN Working Group are considering negotiating a ban on nuclear weapons.We give thanks for the member churches who are advocating that course of action, for partners in civil society and for like-minded governments”.
