The 33rd World Peace Flag Ceremony was held with the Atomic Bomb Dome in Hiroshima as a backdrop, 80 years after the bombing.
I travelled from Tokyo by bullet train with our member Ms.Takigawa Yoko to attend the event.
The ceremony started with a speech by WPFC Hiroshima representative Ms. Otani Miharu. During the ceremony, participants waved the flags of all countries around the world and I rang the Peace Bell for each continent to pray for world peace.
This was the fourth time I have participated in the Hiroshima Flag Ceremony, but this year was the 80th anniversary of the end of the war, and a particularly large number of people attended the ceremony. The relatives of Sasaki Sadako, an A-bomb survivor, also attended and gave a speech, followed by a speech by Ms. Heidi Unferdorben, the creator of the Global Peace Pole in Oceania, and I also gave a speech as a representative of the Association for the Preservation of UN Peace Bell.
I felt that people’s growing fear of nuclear weapons reflected their sense of danger of a new nuclear war and their desire for a world without war.
