Shuji Kajiyama / AP Photo
The Hibakusha have experienced the unimaginable. The survivors of the atomic bombings on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II (in Japanese Hibakusha means explosion-affected people) joined together on the 65th anniversary of Hiroshima to urge the international community to disarm and rid itself of nuclear weapons. Only 227,000 Hibakusha are still alive, both survivors and the fetuses carried by mothers at the time of the bombings. "We have overcome and in order to not let the human race experience such atrocities, we have come to say abolish nuclear weapons and never create Hibakusha again," said Mikiso Iwasa, who survived the Hiroshima bombing on August 6, 1945 (the United States dropped another bomb on Nagasaki three days later). "This is not something that we're doing for ourselves, but for you and all people to never have to experience this again."