KYOTO – A junior high school student from Nagasaki Prefecture who is the granddaughter of an atomic bomb survivor will attend the general audience with Pope…
KYOTO – A junior high school student from Nagasaki Prefecture who is the granddaughter of an atomic bomb survivor will attend the general audience with Pope Francis in Vatican City on Wednesday, carrying the “flame of peace” from the atomic bombing of Hiroshima more than 70 years ago.
The student is part a group on a trip organized by Earth Caravan, a Kyoto-based nonprofit. The participants will pray for world peace during the papal audience.
The flame of peace is kept alight at a monument in the city of Yame, Fukuoka Prefecture. The fire is said to have been brought from Hiroshima in September 1945 after the city was flattened by the U. S. atomic bombing on Aug. 6 that year in the closing days of World War II.
Yusa Okada, 13, a first-year junior high school student, will be joined by Chiyumi Shinkai, 55, a second-generation hibakusha, and Setsuko Thurlow, 87, who survived the Hiroshima bombing and campaigns for the elimination of nuclear arms in cooperation with the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN).
