Nobel Peace Prize winners warn of rising risk of nuclear war

Leaders of the group of atomic bomb survivors awarded the Nobel Peace Prize warned on Saturday that the risk of nuclear war was rising, renewing their call to abolish nuclear weapons.

"The international situation is getting progressively worse, and now wars are being waged as countries threaten the use of nuclear weapons," said Shigemitsu Tanaka, a survivor of the 1945 U.S. bombing of Nagasaki and co-head of the Nihon Hidankyo group.

"I fear that we as humankind are on the path to self-destruction. The only way to stop that is to abolish nuclear," he said.

In awarding the survivors, the Norwegian Nobel Committee highlighted the devastation of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the Japanese group's decades-long work to rid the world of nuclear weapons.

The group's endeavors have critical importance in the world today, the committee said. It did not specify any countries.

Russian President Vladimir Putin signaled last month that Moscow would consider responding with the nuclear weapons if the U.S. and its allies allow Ukraine to strike deep inside Russia with long-range Western missiles.

Many survivors of the only two nuclear bombs ever to be used in conflict, who are known in Japanese as "hibakusha," have dedicated their lives to the struggle for a nuclear-free world.

Visitors pray in front of the Cenotaph for the Victims of the Atomic Bomb at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park, on the following day of The Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations (Nihon Hidankyo) winning the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize, in Hiroshima, western Japan. Reuters

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Friday issued a statement, "They're an inspiration to our shared efforts to build a world free of nuclear weapons.”

U.N. High Representative For Disarmament Affairs, Izumi Nakamitsu, echoed Guterres at the press conference at the United Nation’s headquarter in New York.

“Hibakushas are very brave and decided to share the catastrophic experiences to the world public in order for the world to make movements towards peace and nuclear disarmament and, of course, eventually elimination of nuclear weapons.” said Nakamitsu.

There were 106,825 atomic bomb survivors registered in Japan as of March this year, data from the country's health ministry showed, with an average age of 85.6 years.