CND groups across Britain will start to hold nationwide commemorations from this weekend to mark the 79th anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
On Tuesday, 6 August, CND General Secretary Kate Hudson will attend the annual Hiroshima Day event in Tavistock Square, London, starting at 12 noon. She will honour the hundreds of thousands of victims whose lives were cruelly taken in an instant and warn about the heightened nuclear dangers caused by the war in Ukraine and the ongoing crisis in the Middle East.
This year’s commemoration comes as nuclear weapons states surge ahead with modernising and expanding their arsenals. Nuclear proliferation and escalation also remain a major risk: the US is bringing nuclear weapons back to Britain for the first time since 2008; Russia has moved its own nuclear weapons to Belarus; and in some quarters of Europe, there is talk of developing Europe’s very own nuclear weapons system.
In the Middle East, the ongoing aggression in Gaza by nuclear-armed Israel has left the entire region teetering on the brink of a wider regional war. CND calls on the British government to take positive action to reduce these tensions and nuclear risks.
CND General Secretary Kate Hudson said:
“CND groups will be gathering across the country to honour the victims of the atrocities that occurred at Hiroshima and Nagasaki 79 years ago, and we invite members of the public to join us at these commemorations. It is important that we remind ourselves that such acts of barbarity must never be allowed to happen again, and that we must take action to prevent another nuclear catastrophe.”
London Region CND Chair Carol Turner said:
“The world has never been closer to nuclear war. Remembering the victims of the atomic bombing of Japan in 1945 is a sobering reminder of just what nuclear war would mean to people and planet.”
A list of local events can be found on CND’s events page here and on our map here.