Photo/Illutration Mexican muralists Adri del Rocio, third from left, and Carlos Alberto GH, fifth from left, pose with Nihon Hidankyo cochairman Toshiyuki Mimaki, fourth from left, for a commemorative photo in front of their finished mural at Hiroshima Airport on Oct. 15. (Jun Ueda)

MIHARA, Hiroshima Prefecture--A gigantic mural recently unveiled at Hiroshima Airport to mark the 80th anniversary of the city's atomic bombing depicts key players in the antinuclear movement.

The project was the brainchild of two brothers with paternal links to Mexico, one of the driving forces behind the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW).

Nihon Hidankyo (Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations), which was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2024, gave a ringing endorsement to the mural.

A ceremony was held Oct. 15 to commemorate completion of the approximately 200-square-meter image that adorns most of the wall of a building on the east side of Hiroshima Airport.

It features three Japanese people strongly associated with the antinuclear movement: Senji Yamaguchi (1930-2013), who in 1982 became the first hibakusha atomic bomb survivor to address the U.N. headquarters; Sadako Sasaki (1943-1955) who was exposed to radiation from the bombing when she was 2 years old and died of leukemia; and Ichiro Moritaki (1901-1994), Nihon Hidankyo’s inaugural director.

The mural also features a Mexican diplomat with the Japanese trio: Alfonso Garcia Robles (1911-1991), a former foreign minister of Mexico, who played a key role in realizing the Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America, which took effect in 1968. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1982.

The Treaty of Tlatelolco, as the convention is also called, is seen as a precursor to the TPNW, which came into force in 2021.

The mural project was planned and led by Ichiro Gutierrez and his brother Minoru, the offspring of a Mexican father and a Japanese mother.

“People in Hiroshima and Nagasaki are not the only ones who are wishing for nuclear abolition,” said Ichiro Gutierrez, 47, who attended the ceremony. “I hope the mural will help people realize that there are also like-minded people across the world.”

Gutierrez previously worked for Peace Boat, a Japan-based nongovernmental body known for its around-the-world cruises, and took part in its “Global Voyage for a Nuclear-Free World” project.

His 40-year brother Minoru had ties with Hiroshima due to his involvement in a friendship alliance concluded between the Hiroshima prefectural government and the Mexican state of Guanajuato.

The brothers said they were inspired to create a mural with an antinuclear message after Nihon Hidankyo won the Nobel prize last year.

It was painted by Adri del Rocio and her younger brother, a Mexican street artist who goes by the moniker Carlos Alberto GH, with whom the Gutierrez brothers are friends.

The siblings listened to accounts of hibakusha and pored over documents and other materials to gain a thorough understanding of the hibakusha issue.

They included images in the wall painting of “orizuru” folded-paper cranes, which in Japan symbolize prayers for recovery from illness as well as peace, alongside images of living cranes to express hopes for the everlasting existence of humankind.

The ceremony was attended by Toshiyuki Mimaki, a Nihon Hidankyo cochairman, who was allowed by the hospital where he is receiving medical treatment to attend the occasion.

“This mural will help in continuing calls for a nuclear-free world even after all hibakusha have departed this life,” said the 83-year-old Hiroshima native.

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