Japan's atomic bomb survivor group wins Nobel peace prize

Survivors of the atomic bombings of Japan almost eight decades ago have won the Nobel peace prize for their campaign to rid the world of nuclear weapons.

- Justin McCurry

The Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organisations - commonly known as Nihon Hidankyo - received the accolade one year before the 80th anniversary of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and at a time of growing concern about the possible use of nuclear weapons.

The Nobel committee said it had decided to award the prize to Nihon Hidankyo "for its efforts to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons and for demonstrating through witness testimony that nuclear weapons must never be used again".

The Norwegian committee said testimony by hibakusha - survivors of the 1945 bombings - had "helped to generate and consolidate widespread opposition to nuclear weapons around the world by drawing on personal stories, creating educational campaigns based on their own experience". It added: “The hibakusha help us to describe the indescribable, to think the unthinkable, and to somehow grasp the incomprehensible pain and suffering caused by nuclear weapons.”