By YUHEI KYONO/ Staff Writer
August 31, 2023 at 19:07 JST
Origami cranes made by Sadako Sasaki are displayed at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. They were donated by Shigeo Sasaki and Masahiro Sasaki. (Rikuri Kuroda)
HIROSHIMA--Local authorities and campaigners here are seeking to add origami cranes that symbolize world peace and the anti-nuclear weapons movement to UNESCO’s Memory of the World register.
The applicants hope that around 100 cranes made by Sadako Sasaki, along with notes that recorded her blood test results, will be registered in the UNESCO program in 2025, the 80th anniversary of the atomic bombing of the city.
Sadako is one of the most famous Hiroshima hibakusha.
She died of leukemia at age 12, a decade after being exposed to radiation from the 1945 nuclear attack on the city. Sadako folded more than a thousand paper birds from her hospital bed, wishing to be well again.
Many visitors to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park continue to offer colorful origami cranes at a statue there in honor of the girl.
On Aug. 28, Hiroshima’s prefectural and municipal governments, Sadako's bereaved family and a group of atomic bomb survivors living in Brazil jointly submitted their application to the Japanese National Commission for UNESCO.
The culture ministry, which oversees the commission, said that a decision will be made in November about whether the application will be passed on to UNESCO.
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