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The Nagasaki Peace Messengers – a group including Japanese High School students as well as descendants of “hibakusha” or victims of the atomic bomb - visited UNI Global Union Head Office in Nyon. Earlier, they had delivered a petition with more than 80,000 signatories to the United Nations calling for nuclear disarmament.

Masahiro Kikkuchi has lost both of his parents in the earthquake that struck northeast Japan in March. Masahiro has joined the Nagasaki Peace Messengers because he wants to turn his terrible loss into something positive for world peace. Masahiro said, “It was impossible to prevent what happened but the strength of feeling the tragedy created around the world can be used to work for world peace and breakdown the barriers between countries.”

The devastation caused by the earthquake and the tsunami was a chilling reminder of the country's worst human catastrophe - the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The leaking nuclear power plant in Fukishima that followed was a further reminder.



Some 70,000 Japanese died instantly when the U.S. dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima on August 6 1945, and three days later another 75,000 died when a second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki.



Neil Anderson, Head of Post and Logistics Sector UNI who addressed the Peace

Messengers said, “We can only deal with the results of natural disasters such as the tsunami in Japan but we can work proactively for nuclear disarmament to prevent the disaster which comes with atomic bombs.”





One of the young Peace Messengers, Maki Shiota, said they were campaigning to make sure that Nagasaki was the last ever city subjected to the atomic bomb. “As the survivors of the bomb become older it is our responsibility to take up their cause. Maki said, “After all we are the last generation who will hear first hand the voices of the survivors.”



UNI Global Union has a warm friendship with the people of Nagasaki – the city where it held its World Congress in 2010. UNI’s Breaking Through plan supports the global nuclear disarmament movement. UNI has hosted the Peace Messengers in Nyon for the past seven years.