“In a world where with today’s technology, two bombs can kill the entire population of the Earth, killing women and men, adults and children: we cannot have this. Peace. No war.”
Masakazu Saito is one of more than twenty “Hibakusha”, survivors of the atomic bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, who have travelled to Oslo for the Nobel Peace Prize events this weekend. To this day, he bears a crack in his skull from the time the bomb fell, and his hands remain sensitive to touch,as the skin easily peels off. He is one of the living witnesses to the harm and sheer devastation that nuclear weapons bring when they are used.
“I was told by the doctors over and over that I would not survive. Yet here I am, 94 years old” he says.
Today in the Oslo Botanical Garden, the group of Hibakusha joined the mayor of Oslo, the principal of Oslo University, and the head of the Oslo Museum of National History for an event themed “Seeds for Peace”, where they planted seeds as a token of hope together.
Full gallery: Atomic bomb survivors
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