Note to Correspondents

‘A Message to the World from Hiroshima and Nagasaki’ to Be Launched

at Headquarters Monday, as Nuclear-Weapon Treaty Review Begins

“A Message to the World from Hiroshima and Nagasaki”, one of two exhibits in the Stop Nuclear Arms! joint exhibition, will be launched with a special ceremony on Monday, 3 May, at 4 p.m. in the Visitors’ Lobby at United Nations Headquarters.  The exhibit is mounted in conjunction with the 2010 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), which takes place at Headquarters from 3 to 28 May.

Speakers at the launch will include Kiyo Akasaka, Under-Secretary-General for Communications and Public Information; Tadatoshi Akiba, Mayor of Hiroshima; Tomihisa Taue, Mayor of Nagasaki; and Sunao Tsuboi, Co-Chairperson of Nihon Hidankyo, also known as the Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organization.

On 6 and 9 August 1945, the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were destroyed by the first atomic bomb used in warfare.  More than 200,000 people died.  Their deaths were caused by nuclear radiation, shock waves from the blast and thermal radiation.

This multimedia exhibit focuses on the Hibakusha ‑‑ the survivors of the atomic bombings.  The pictures in this exhibition show the impact of nuclear weapons and how the Hibakusha have lived their lives and continue to be advocates for the abolition of nuclear weapons.  Since the end of the Second World War, more than 400,000 Hibakusha have died ‑‑ and continue to die ‑‑ because of the atomic bombs.  Also included in the exhibit are artefacts recovered from the blast areas, donated by the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as well as a 30-minute video entitled “ Hiroshima:  A Mother’s Prayer”.

This exhibition is sponsored by Nihon Hidankyo, the Permanent Mission of Japan to the United Nations, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, with support from the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Nihon Hidankyo is the only national organization of A-bomb survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan.  It was founded on 10 August 1956, during the Second World Conference against A- and H-Bombs and is comprised of Hibakusha organizations in all 47 prefectures.

For more information on United Nations exhibitions, please contact Jan Arnesen, tel.:  212 963 8531, e-mail:  arnesen@un.org; or Liza Wichmann, tel.:  212 963 0089, e-mail:  wichmann@un.org.

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For information media • not an official record