Nagasaki marked the 81st anniversary of its atomic bombing on Saturday as Mayor Shiro Suzuki used the city’s peace declaration to denounce nuclear deterrence, declaring that nuclear weapons and humanity cannot coexist. Speaking at the Peace Memorial Ceremony in Peace Park, Suzuki called on world leaders to urgently restore multilateralism and the rule of law based on the United Nations Charter.
The ceremony drew representatives from 98 countries and the European Union, including Taiwan for a second consecutive year. The United States sent its chargé d’affaires after Ambassador Glass was absent, while Russia and Israel attended and China was not present. A moment of silence was observed at 11:02 a.m., the time the bomb detonated in 1945. The names of 2,773 newly confirmed victims were added to the memorial register, bringing the total death toll to 204,708.
Suzuki urged Japan’s government to attend a November conference reviewing the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons and to expand relief for survivors outside officially designated zones. India’s ambassador paid her respects at the bombing’s epicentre and visited the Atomic Bomb Museum ahead of the ceremony.