Memorial for WW II atomic bombings now 'couldn't be more important': Saskatoon councillor

At an event on Tuesday evening rememberingthe victims of the 1945 atomic bombings inHiroshima and Nagasaki, Saskatoon Ward 6 councillorCynthia Block remarked to the crowd "the timing of this event perhaps couldn't be more important."

"Certainly not in my lifetime have I been more worried about a repeat," she said.

Some estimates put the number of people killed in Hiroshima at 140,000 by the end of 1945, while 74,000 people were killed at Nagasaki when the United States droppedatomic bombs on the Japanese cities during the Second World War.

People are still being persecuted.- Bwegoh Soe, refugee

On the 72nd anniversary of the bombing of Nagasakion Aug. 9, U.S. President Donald Trump warned North Korea of"fire and fury like the world has never seen" in response to nuclear threats against Guam.

Speakers at the event held by the city's Japanese-Canadian community warned not only of nuclear war, but long-running persecution.

"We're here to remember people who have suffered and were persecuted. People are still being persecuted," said Bwegoh Soe, who came to Canada as a refugee a victim of ethnic cleansing in Myanmar.

"I'm one of 3.5 million displaced people. I was born in a Thailand refugee camp," he said.

The 27-year-oldmoved to Canada at 16, and is often invited to events as a guest speaker to recount his experiences.

"When I was young I started to feel the pain and suffering, and see people suffer around me. No children should feel like this."

YasuoHitomi, another guest speaker, grew up in Japan before attending the University of Saskatchewan.

His grandfather often recounted stories much like the ones Soe tells, but from a different era.

"Every time, he said atomic bombs are so terrible. So people can't make them again. Every time he said the same thing," Hitomi recalled.

Hitomibelongs to a Hiroshima supporter's club in Japan, and said the Japanese people "pray every year" in remembrance of the disasters.