Nuclear weapons are loaded guns for humanity, says UN secretary general

The UN secretary-general issues a warning at the Hiroshima memorial about the dangers presented by the crises on the Korean peninsula, the Middle East, and Ukraine.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on the 77th anniversary of the first atomic bomb assault, stated in the Japanese city of Hiroshima that humanity is “playing with a loaded gun” as crises with the potential for nuclear catastrophe proliferate around the world.

On August 6, 1945, the United States unleashed the first atomic bomb, obliterating Hiroshima and killing 140,000 people. Three days later, it struck Nagasaki with a second atomic bomb, killing over 70,000 people. On August 15, 1945, Japan formally ended the Second World War.

Guterres at a ceremony commemorating the first nuclear bomb’s detonation on Saturday warned of the dangers presented by the conflicts in Ukraine, the Middle East, and the Korean peninsula while describing the atrocities experienced in the Japanese city during World War II.

The UN chief said “Tens of thousands of people were killed in this city in the blink of an eye. Women, children and men were incinerated in a hellish fire.”

“We must ask: What have we learned from the mushroom cloud that swelled above this city?”

In New York this week, Guterres warned that crises with severe nuclear undertones are spreading swiftly. He repeated the same concerns earlier this week.