Arab News Japan

TOKYO: Two World War II survivors and a 7-year-old descendant testified at the Nippon Budokan during a press conference preceding the national tribute to the Japanese victims of the war on Tuesday.

YOKOTA Teruo, 83, remembered the horrors of war; his father died when he was 4 years old and he never got to know him. He explained that the conflict in Ukraine would see other dramatic stories of war survivors emerge similar to his own story.

TAKEUCHI Emiko, 104, lost her husband, a soldier on the Chinese front, when he was 33 years old. She had to endure fire-bombings on the city of Kobe and has spent part of her life recounting the horrors of war and campaigning for peace.

ICHIKAWA Yuito, a 7-year-old Japanese boy, lost his grandfather who was a soldier in the Philippines. He said he did not understand the meaning of the war in Ukraine. “I look at the images in books with my grandparents,” he said. “All I can think about is how I want them to stop this war.”