Hibakusha Remain Resolved on Nuke Abolition after Trump's Win

Tokyo/Hiroshima/Nagasaki, Nov. 7 (Jiji Press)--Hibakusha atomic bomb survivors in Japan have stressed their intentions to continue calling for the abolition of nuclear weapons following former U.S. President Donald Trump's victory in Tuesday's presidential election in the United States.

"Although we have yet to know what direction the United States will take, we will continue communicating to the world our wish to abolish nuclear weapons and create no more hibakusha," said Jiro Hamasumi, assistant secretary-general of the Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations, or Nihon Hidankyo, which has been named the winner of this year's Nobel Peace Prize.

"No matter who becomes U.S. president, Nihon Hidankyo will continue its activities" toward nuclear abolition, Hamasumi, 78, added.

"I don't know where the United States will be heading for (under the Trump administration), but I, as a hibakusha, want (Trump) to aim for a world without nuclear weapons," Toshiyuki Mimaki, 82, co-chair of Nihon Hidankyo and head of an association of hibakusha in Hiroshima Prefecture, said.

"If Mr. Trump has a chance to visit Japan, I want him to come to Hiroshima and listen to what hibakusha have to say," said Kunihiko Sakuma, the 80-year-old chief of a different hibakusha association in the western Japan prefecture.

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]