A group of high school students from Japan called for the abolition of nuclear weapons Wednesday in New York, where a meeting of signatories to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons is underway.
"Let's take a step forward together toward the goal of eliminating nuclear weapons and realizing a peaceful world," Mayu Kobayashi, one of the "student peace ambassadors," said at a gathering near the U.N. headquarters.
Kobayashi, a 17-year-old second-year student at Nagasaki Nishi High School, said that over 210,000 people were killed instantly by the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.
"I believe that peace is not something to be taken for granted, but something we must continuously protect," she stressed.
Among other participants of the gathering was Jiro Hamasumi, 79, who is the assistant secretary-general of the Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations, or Nihon Hidankyo, which won the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize.
A Navajo woman also gave a speech about nuclear weapons. Members of the Indigenous group suffer from environmental pollution and health damage caused by the mining of uranium.
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