People in Hiroshima and Nagasaki on Sunday mourned the death of Pope John Paul II, who visited the atomic-bombed cities in 1981 to appeal for world peace.

The Polish pontiff, who led the Roman Catholic Church for 26 years, died Saturday evening in his Vatican apartment at the age of 84, ending a long public struggle against debilitating illness.

Toshiyuki Fukazaki, a 75-year-old former Hiroshima city government official, said the pope's appeal "was comprehensible as well as powerful. He told the world of the importance of the experience of Hiroshima."