The 2024 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded Friday to the Japanese organization Nihon Hidankyo, with the Nobel committee praising the “popular movement of survivors of the atomic bomb of Hiroshima and Nagasaki” for its work aimed at “achieving a world without nuclear weapons and for demonstrating through testimonies that nuclear weapons must never be used again.
Jørgen Watne Frydnes, president of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, said the prize was awarded while “the taboo against the use of nuclear weapons is under pressure.”
Both North Korean leader Kim Jong Un And Russian Vladimir Putin have repeatedly threatened over the past year to use nuclear weapons if they believe their countries are under threat.
The secretary general of Nihon Hidankyo, also known as Hibakusha, is Nagasaki bombing survivor Tanaka Terumi, 92, who was 13 when the U.S. bomb hit his city.
TERJE BENDIKSBY/AFP/Getty
The 2024 Peace Prize was awarded in a context of devastating conflicts raging around the world, particularly in Middle East, Ukraine And Sudan.
Alfred Nobel stated in his will that the prize should be awarded for “the most important or best work in favor of brotherhood among nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congress. Since 1901, 104 Nobel Peace Prizes have been awarded, primarily to individuals but also to organizations that have advanced peace efforts.
Last year’s prize went to imprisoned Iranian activist Narges Mohammadi for her advocacy in favor of women’s rights and democracy, and against the death penalty. The Nobel committee said it was also a recognition of the “hundreds of thousands of people” who demonstrated against “The Iranian theocratic regime“Policies of discrimination and oppression targeting women.”
In the Middle East, a continuing spiral of violence over the past year has killed tens of thousands of people, including thousands of children and women. The war, sparked by the bloody terrorist attack on Israel by Hamas-led militants on October 7, 2023 that left around 1,200 people dead, mostly civilians, has spread across the region .
The war in Gaza alone has killed more than 42,000 people, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry, which does not differentiate between civilians and fighters in its tally but says more than half are women and children. In Lebanon, more than 1,400 people have been killed, thousands more injured and around a million displaced since mid-September, when the Israeli army significantly expanded its offensive against Hezbollah.
The war in Ukraine, sparked by the Russian invasion, is heading into its third winter with enormous loss of life on both sides.
The UN has confirmed more than 11,000 Ukrainian civilian deaths, but this does not take into account the 25,000 Ukrainians believed to have died during the Russian capture of the city of Mariupol or unreported deaths in the occupied territories.
Western officials have estimated Russian military losses at around 600,000, including perhaps 150,000 deaths, and public reports put around 150 Russian civilian deaths, mostly in the Belgorod border region.
On the African continent, Sudan has been devastated by a 17-month war that has so far killed more than 20,000 people and forced more than 8 million from their homes, while around 2 million others were already displaced within the country before the outbreak of hostilities. out.
The Nobel Prizes carry a cash prize of 11 million Swedish crowns ($1 million). Unlike the other Nobel Prizes selected and announced in Stockholm, founder Alfred Nobel decreed that the Peace Prize would be decided and awarded in Oslo by the five-member Norwegian Nobel Committee.
The Nobel Prize season ends Monday with the announcement of the winner of the economics prize, officially known as the Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel.
