Japan's atomic bomb survivor group wins Nobel Peace Prize

It gets nod for efforts towards a world free of nuclear weapons using human testimony

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Japanese organisation Nihon Hidankyo, a grassroots movement of atomic bomb survivors, was on Oct 11 awarded the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize "for its efforts to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons".

Nihon Hidankyo has for decades represented hundreds of thousands of survivors of the US atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.

These survivors, known as the hibakusha, are living memorials to the horror of the attacks and have used their testimony to raise awareness of the human consequences of nuclear warfare.

The Nobel - one of the world's most prestigious honours - recognises the group at a time when survivors of the attacks, which killed an estimated 200,000 people, are mostly in their 80s and are dying by the hundreds each month.

It also comes as the world confronts increasing worries about Russia's veiled threats that it could use its arsenal as the war in Ukraine continues and about the nuclear programmes of Iran and North Korea.