A-bomb survivors protest Trump nuclear test order

TOKYO (AFP) — A Japanese atomic bomb survivors group that won the Nobel Peace Prize has strongly criticized United States President Donald Trump’s surprise directive to begin nuclear weapons testing, calling it “utterly unacceptable.”

More than 200,000 people were killed when the US dropped two atomic bombs on Japan’s Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II, the only time nuclear weapons have been used during warfare.

Survivors — known as “hibakusha” — have battled decades of physical and psychological trauma, as well as the stigma that often came with being a victim.

After Trump said Thursday that he had ordered the Pentagon to start nuclear weapons testing to equal China and Russia, Nobel laureate Nihon Hidankyo sent a letter of protest to the US embassy in Japan.

The directive “directly contradicts the efforts by nations around the world striving for a peaceful world without nuclear weapons and is utterly unacceptable,” the survivors group said in the letter, a copy of which was obtained by Agence France-Presse on Friday.

The Mayor of Nagasaki also condemned Trump’s order, saying it “trampled on the efforts of people around the world who have been sweating blood and tears to realize a world without nuclear weapons.”

“If nuclear weapons testing were to start immediately, wouldn’t that make him unworthy of the Nobel Peace Prize?” Mayor Shiro Suzuki told reporters Thursday, referring to Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s intention to nominate Trump for the award.

Hidankyo, a grassroots movement of hibakusha that won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2024, called on countries to abolish nuclear weapons.

Two other atomic bomb survivor groups based in Hiroshima issued statements of protest, saying: “We strongly protest and firmly demand that no such experiments be conducted.”

“In a nuclear war, there are no winners or losers; all of humanity becomes the loser,” said Hiroshima Congress against A-and-H Bombs and the Hiroshima Prefecture Federation of A-Bomb Victims Associations in a joint statement.

“The inhumane nature of nuclear weapons is evident from the devastation witnessed in Hiroshima and Nagasaki,” it added.

The US dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima on 6 August 1945 and then another on Nagasaki three days later.