MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 21st January, 2021) The hibakusha, or the surviving victims of the 1945 US nuclear bombings of Japan, are calling on the government to join the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), which will come into force on January 22, the NHK public broadcaster reported on Thursday.
According to the Japanese media outlet, the hibakusha are hoping for Tokyo to take the lead in making nuclear weapons illegal.
The 82-year-old Kodama Michiko, a Hiroshima bombing survivor, expressed her regret over Japan not joining the TPNW despite being the only country to have suffered from the use of atomic weapons.
In 1945, the United States dropped two atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, on August 6 and August 9, respectively. The atomic bomb code-named "Little Boy" killed about 140,000 residents of Hiroshima city, while another, called "Fat Man" claimed the lives of some 70,000 people in Nagasaki. The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are the only attacks with nuclear weapons in the history of warfare.
The TPNW, which was passed by the United Nations back in July 2017 and will come into force on Friday, prohibits the development, testing, production, stockpiling, use, transfer, and the threat of nuclear weapons. The required 50 states have ratified the treaty.
