Dear friend,

On August 6th, 1945 at 8:16 am, a nuclear bomb was dropped on the city of Hiroshima, killing over 140,000 people and wiping out most of the city. 74 years later, the bomb’s catastrophic consequences are still affecting people’s lives.

Today, tens of thousands of people have gathered  in Hiroshima, and around the world, to commemorate the victims and echo the call of the Hibakusha - the survivors of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki - that such a thing must never happen again. And at the UN in New York, one such commemoration took a very special form today:  Bolivia has just marked Hiroshima Day by depositing its ratification instrument for the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). With this ratification, TPNW is now officially halfway towards entry into force!

When the TPNW reaches 50 States Parties, it will enter into force, making nuclear weapons illegal under international law. That will not only make the maintenance and development of nuclear weapons less attractive and more difficult, both for existing nuclear weapons possessors and potential new ones, it will also create a lasting stigma around these weapons of mass destruction. As Setsuko Thurlow - a survivor of the Hiroshima bombing and determined campaign for the abolition of nuclear weapons -put it when the Treaty was adopted: “This is the beginning of the end of nuclear weapons.”

Today’s milestone brings us another step closer to that goal. In times when a new nuclear war looms large overhead, we hope to see all responsible states follow the example of these first 25 states parties and join the Treaty without delay. And we hope we can keep counting on your support to make this happen.

Thank you,

Beatrice Fihn 
Executive Director 
International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons

Thank you,

Beatrice Fihn 
Executive Director 
International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons