Survivors of the 1945 U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki have been invited to attend the Nobel Peace Prize award ceremony scheduled for December in Oslo, according to the leader of a group that worked with the Norwegian Nobel Committee to arrange the visit.
"Hibakusha are the best contributors to the campaign to eliminate nuclear weapons. (The invitation) will provide an opportunity to enhance global momentum to prevent the repeat of such calamities," said Kenjin Abe, chairman of the Hiroshima/Nagasaki Survivors Project of Japan.
Such an invitation is rare because people usually invited to the award ceremony are family members or others somehow connected with the winners, according to Abe, an associate professor of social pathology at Toin University of Yokohama.