At an award ceremony in Nagasaki, IPB Vice President Rae Street gave a medal to Hidankyo representatives, lauding bomb survivors for continuing their calls for the elimination of nuclear weapons with unyielding courage.

Senji Yamaguchi, 72, one of three Hidankyo chairmen, said in receiving the award, "Bomb victims are growing old. We want to devote the short time remaining in our lives toward the elimination of nuclear weapons in a way worthy of this prize."

Hidankyo has member organizations in all 47 prefectures of Japan and thus represents almost all groups of A-bomb survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The IPB, which won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1910, established its non-monetary peace prize in 1992 in the name of the late IPB chairman and president, Sean MacBride, a former Irish minister of external affairs and winner of the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize.

The prize is awarded annually to a person or organization that has done outstanding work for peace, disarmament or human rights.