Photo/Illutration Seven children of Ukrainian evacuee families listen to an account of what happened when Hiroshima was leveled by atomic bombing on Aug. 6, 1945, during a tour to the city on Nov. 19. (Risako Miyake)

HIROSHIMA--Seven children of Ukrainian evacuee families visited sites associated with the city’s 1945 atomic bombing on Nov. 19 for a first-hand look at the horrors of nuclear war.

The visit was even more pertinent in view of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s threat to use nuclear weapons in his invasion of Ukraine and offered the children an opportunity to pray for an end to the hostilities so the hard work of rebuilding their devastated homeland can begin.

The children, who range in age from 10 to 14 and are staying in Aichi and Gifu prefectures, fled with their parents from Kyiv as well as the southern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia and elsewhere.

The two-day tour to Hiroshima from Nov. 19 was organized by U-Crane, a Nagoya group of teachers and others working to support Ukraine.

The group visited the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum and other atomic-bomb related sites the same day as members of the Peace Culture Village, a nonprofit group which offers guided tours of the memorial park.

Anjelika Kurtiak, 14, who now lives in Nagoya after leaving her home in Ternopil, western Ukraine, in March said the tour drove home to her the horrors of nuclear war and the need to hold out hopes for the future.

“I realized how disastrous it was when a nuclear weapon was actually used,” she said of the Aug. 6, 1945, atomic bombing that claimed tens of thousands of lives in an instant. “Today, this city looks so beautiful. I just want to hope that Ukraine will recover from the ravages of war, just like Hiroshima did.”

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