International Olympic Committee chief Thomas Bach will visit Hiroshima on Friday, the city's municipal government said Tuesday, despite growing calls to cancel what critics call a politically motivated visit to the atomic-bombed city.
Bach — who is already in Tokyo for the Olympics, scheduled to begin in just over a week — is set to visit the Peace Memorial Park dedicated to the victims of the 1945 U.S. atomic bombing, and lay flowers at the cenotaph there. His trip will coincide with the start of an Olympic truce adopted by the United Nations.
He is also scheduled to take a tour of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum located in the park, according to the municipal government.