HIROSHIMA -- Survivors of the 1945 atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki who live outside Japan have recently been calling for the Tokyo government to give them treatment equal to that of survivors resident in Japan.
Kanji Kuramoto, 71, president of the Committee of A-Bomb Survivors in the U.S., and Chong Sang Sok, 68, chairman of the association of A-bomb survivors in South Korea, visited Hiroshima on July 7 to discuss the issue at a symposium sponsored by Japan-based survivors' associations. The law to support survivors of the bombings, which was established in July 1995 by combining two existing laws for such individuals, allows survivors of any nationality to obtain identification cards to receive free medical treatment for health problems caused by radiation.
But the identification card automatically becomes invalid once a holder leaves Japan, a policy not mentioned in the law but only in a 1974 directive issued by the director of the Health and Welfare Ministry. In April, the ministry dismissed a South Korean survivor's request to review the issue and examine complaints over such administrative procedures.