Photo/Illutration Jiro Hamasumi gives a speech at the third meeting of the state parties to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons at the U.N. headquarters in New York on March 3. (Hiroki Tohda)

NEW YORK—An atomic bomb survivor representing the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize laureate called for the abolition of the weapons that put hibakusha through “hell” at a U.N. conference on the treaty banning nuclear weapons.

“Atomic bombs are ‘the devil’s weapons’ that deprive victims of their futures and torment their families,” Jiro Hamasumi told the third meeting of the state parties to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which opened at the U.N. headquarters on March 3.

Hamasumi, assistant secretary-general of the Japan Federation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations (Nihon Hidankyo), was exposed to radiation from the atomic bombing of Hiroshima while in his mother’s womb.

The 79-year-old said the war has not yet ended for him as 12,120 nuclear weapons still exist throughout the world, with 4,000 ready-to-launch warheads.

“Hibakusha will never feel secure unless the number of nuclear weapons is reduced to zero,” he said, referring to atomic bomb survivors.

Hamasumi’s mother was three months pregnant with him when the United States dropped the atomic bomb over Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945.

His father, who left home early that morning to work at a company near ground zero, never returned.

“Not a single day passes that I don’t think about my father,” he said.

Hamasumi emphasized that the world must not allow anyone else to experience the “hell” that hibakusha were forced to endure.

His speech received loud applause from the audience.

According to the United Nations, 94 countries and regions signed the treaty, which bans the possession, use and development of nuclear weapons, and 73 others already ratified it.

But nuclear powers, such as the United States, Russia, Britain, France and China, are opposed to the treaty and have not attended the latest meeting.

Japan, which is under the U.S. nuclear umbrella, has not signed or ratified the treaty, either.

“How extremely disappointing it is that Japan decided not to participate in this meeting even as an observer,” said Melissa Parke, executive director of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, which received the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize.

“Japan would have a lot of very valuable information and perspectives to contribute to this meeting,” she told a news conference in New York on March 3.

Japan has never participated in a state parties meeting of the treaty, which took effect in 2021.

Parke also said it was “very disappointing” that the government did not listen to hibakusha’s call for the country’s participation, at least as an observer.

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