Nagasaki-Hiroshima atom bombings and Nobel Peace Prize 2024: How they are related?

The Nobel Peace Prize 2024 was awarded on Friday to the Japanese organization Nihon Hidankyo, composed of atomic bomb survivors from Hiroshima and Nagasaki, for its efforts to achieve a nuclear weapons-free world.

This grassroots movement of atomic bomb survivors from Hiroshima and Nagasaki, also known as Hibakusha, is receiving the Peace Prize 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, said the official press release.

In response to the atomic bomb attacks of August 1945, a global movement arose whose members have worked tirelessly to raise awareness about the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of using nuclear weapons, the release said. Gradually, a powerful international norm developed, stigmatising the use of nuclear weapons as morally unacceptable. This norm has become known as “the nuclear taboo”.


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The stories of the Hibakusha—survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki—are vital in the fight against nuclear weapons. Their personal experiences have sparked global opposition to nuclear arms through educational campaigns and urgent warnings, says the release. The Hibakusha help us understand the unimaginable pain and suffering caused by these weapons, it says.

No nuclear weapon has been used in war in nearly 80 years.

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Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings:

Next year will mark 80 years since two American atomic bombs killed an estimated 1,20,000 inhabitants of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. A comparable number died of burn and radiation injuries in the months and years that followed. "Today’s nuclear weapons have far greater destructive power. They can kill millions and would impact the climate catastrophically. A nuclear war could destroy our civilisation."

The fates of those who survived the infernos of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were long concealed and neglected. In 1956, local Hibakusha associations along with victims of nuclear weapons tests in the Pacific formed the Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organisations. This name was shortened in Japanese to Nihon Hidankyo. It would become the largest and most influential Hibakusha organisation in Japan.