Antinuclear

However, there are certain requirements for receiving the allowance, such as how far they were from Ground Zero when they were exposed. There were a total of 183,519 holders of special hibakusha health-care certificates for the bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki as of the end of March, but only 4.8 percent of them, or 8,749, were recognized as having radiation sickness………..

Poverty and discrimination

The effects of radiation have haunted the lives of atomic bomb survivors.

“Just as I expected.” So thought a 72-year-old woman in Kure, Hiroshima Prefecture, when she was diagnosed with malignant lymphoma at a hospital nine years ago.

Her older brother and sister, both hibakusha, died from cancer after the war. The woman was the youngest of seven siblings, a boy and six girls. She experienced the bombing when she was 2 years old, in Ushita-Honmachi, now Higashi Ward, in the city of Hiroshima, about 2.5 kilometers from the blast center.

Looking for her brother and sisters, she entered the central area of the city while being carried by her mother for several days.

Her mother died eight months later, probably as a result of that exposure, while her father also died from a disease. The woman was adopted by another family, but three years later, her brother, who was also exposed to the Hiroshima bombing and had reached the age of 17, took her back……..

The woman was recognized as having radiation sickness in 2009. However, a neighbor told her, “You’re lucky to be a recipient” of the special monthly medical allowance. These words were very painful and in May this year, she refused to accept the money.

She wants people to know about her suffering but does not want them to know that she is hibakusha. This spring, a shadow was also found in her pancreas.

“My family was devastated, and I suffered from poverty and discrimination. My life is bound to the atomic bomb. I want to be freed from this,” she said in a trembling voice http://the-japan-news.com/news/article/0002331263