×

News

Hiroshima mourns the passing of Nagasaki A-bomb survivor

by Kyosuke Mizukawa and Michiko Tanaka, Staff Writers

Sumiteru Taniguchi, 88, a survivor of the Nagasaki atomic bombing and the co-chairperson of the Japan Confederation of A- and H-bomb Sufferers Organizations (Nihon Hidankyo), died on August 30. His loss is being grieved by A-bomb survivors in Hiroshima and young people in Japan.

“I feel very sorry that we’ve lost such a precious person, a member who was completely devoted to providing support for the A-bomb survivors,” said Sunao Tsuboi, 92, the other co-chairperson of Nihon Hidankyo and the chair of the Hiroshima Prefectural Confederation of A-bomb Sufferers Organizations (Hiroshima Prefectural Hidankyo), mourning his death.

Both Mr. Taniguchi and Mr. Tsuboi attended a ceremony that honored Nihon Hidankyo with a special award at the 2010 World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates held in Hiroshima. Since 2016, they had both been serving as promoters of the Hibakusha Appeal, a campaign to collect signatures in support of having all nations conclude a treaty that will ban and eliminate nuclear weapons from the earth. On some occasions they even took to the streets themselves, appealing to passersby for their signatures. Mr. Tsuboi expressed his determination by saying, “Although the number of members is declining, we will use all the strength we have to contribute toward achieving the abolition of nuclear weapons.”

This past July, the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which Mr. Taniguchi had longed for, was successfully adopted at the United Nations. Kunihiko Sakuma, 72, the chair of the other Hiroshima Hidankyo, said, “While Mr. Taniguchi was delighted with the establishment of the treaty, he must still have been concerned over the fact that the nuclear weapon states and the Japanese government did not support it. We must therefore make further efforts toward having the nuclear weapons ban treaty endorsed by Japan as well as all of the nuclear weapon states.”

On this day, at a meeting of the Hibakusha Appeal network held in Tokyo, about 20 participants offered a silent prayer at the start of the meeting. One of them, Terumi Tanaka, 85, co-chair of Nihon Hidankyo, who visited Mr. Taniguchi at a Nagasaki hospital on August 10, said, “As he could not talk, I realized that his condition was very serious, but I still was hoping for a miracle...”

At the 2010 NPT Review Conference held at the United Nations headquarters in New York, Mr. Taniguchi made a speech in front of the government delegates from the world’s nations. Mr. Tanaka clearly recalls his speech. “Mr. Taniguchi’s speech made a tremendous impact on politicians of every country,” he said. “Even though he had suffered from terrible burns to his back and several diseases caused by the atomic bombing, he made great contributions to the A-bomb survivors and toward the abolition of nuclear weapons. I’d like to pay a special tribute to him and everything that he did.”

Mitsuhiro Hayashida, 25, the leader of the global signature campaign and a third generation A-bomb survivor who was born in Nagasaki and now lives in Yokohama, first met Mr. Taniguchi when he was in his third year of junior high school. When he last met Mr. Taniguchi in February 2017, Mr. Taniguchi encouraged him to work for the signature campaign, telling him that collecting signatures will grow even more important in the future. Mr. Hayashida has reaffirmed his determination to pass on Mr. Taniguchi’s message to the generations that follow.

(Originally published on August 31, 2017)

Archives