Korean A-bomb victims head to UN to tell their stories and seek accountability

By Choi Sang-won | April 20, 2026 | This article was produced by Hankyoreh

A delegation of victims and advocates will head to the US next week to alert the international community about the toll that America’s atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki had on Koreans who were forced there during Japanese rule

Han Jeong-soon, the president of the Korean Society for the Second Generation Patients Atomic Bombs, pays her respects at a memorial space featuring plaques with the names of Koreans who died while suffering the aftereffects of the US atomic bombings of Japan, located at a welfare center for Korean A-bomb victims in Hapcheon, South Gyeongsang Province. (Choi Sang-won/Hankyoreh)

“I see this as my last chance to speak,” said Sim Jin-tae, 83. “So I’m going to give it everything I have to get the message out to the international community about how Koreans were affected by the atomic bombs.”

Sim, who serves as president of the Hapcheon chapter of the Korea Atomic Bombs Victims Association, is scheduled to fly to the US on Monday to testify about the Korean toll of the US’ atomic bombings at the once-in-five-year review conference for parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.

“Japan started a war against the US and was hit with atomic bombs while engaging in combat. That goes to show that Japan was never an innocent victim,” Sim told the Hankyoreh on Thursday.

“The true victims of those bombings are the Koreans who were dragged to Japan against their will and became exposed to radiation,” he said. “But how are people from other countries expected to know this when even Koreans remain clueless?” 

Sim himself is an atomic bomb survivor, having been in Japan during the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. Originally from Hapcheon, a county in South Gyeongsang Province, his parents went to Hiroshima in 1940. Sim’s father, who was fluent in Japanese, worked as a civilian military worker, while his mother made ammunition cartridges at a munitions factory. Sim was born in Hiroshima on Jan. 9, 1943.

The US forced Japan to surrender in WWII by dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945, and Nagasaki on Aug. 9. Approximately 230,000 people lost their lives in those bombings — at least 40,000 of whom were Korean. The total number of Koreans exposed to the bombings is estimated at around 70,000. 

Sim Jin-tae (left), the president of the Hapcheon chapter of the Korea Atomic Bombs Victim Association, and Han Jeong-soon (right), the president of the Korean Society for the Second Generation Patients Atomic Bombs, will be leaving for the US on April 20, 2026, to testify about the effects of America’s bombings on Koreans. (courtesy of the Korean Society for the Second Generation Patients Atomic Bombs)

Following Korea’s emancipation from Japan on Aug. 15, 1945, 23,000 atomic bomb survivors returned to Korea. Having narrowly escaped death, Sim’s parents went back to their home in Hapcheon with their young son in tow.  

“Has America ever apologized or paid us reparations? When has Japan demonstrated any sort of remorse? What has our government done? It’s done nothing more than try to stay on the good side of both the US and Japan — how can we call ourselves a sovereign state?” Sim said, the anger apparent in his voice.

Accompanying Sim to the US is Han Jeong-soon, 67, the head of the Korean Society for the Second Generation Patients Atomic Bomb Survivors. Han, whose parents were exposed to radiation in Hiroshima, is part of the second generation of Koreans affected by the atomic bombings. 

“While they made it out alive, both my parents suffered with lasting aftereffects. My mother had been pregnant with my eldest brother at the time of the bombing, but he died in infancy for reasons that weren’t clear to them at the time,” Han said. 

“My parents gave birth to two boys and four girls after returning to Korea, and all of us have suffered from cerebral infarction, heart conditions, osteonecrosis of the hip, and dizziness from a young age,” she said. 

“The third generation, which includes my son, nieces and nephews, also suffers from cerebral infarction,” said Han. “My mother was riddled with guilt, thinking that this was all her fault, and never permitted us to talk about the bombing.” Han said that hereditary illnesses and generational poverty prevented her from getting a proper education. “I’ve barely eked out a living for myself,” she said. “With this trip, I’m ready to put everything on the line to tell the world what we’ve gone through.”

Out of the 23,000 atomic bomb victims who returned to Korea after it gained its independence in 1945, only 1,510 remain — 577 men and 933 women. The average age of survivors is now 85.6. 

Surviving an atomic bombing does not spare one from its consequences. Radiation can cause genetic mutations, meaning the effects of the bombing may be passed down to children and grandchildren even without direct exposure.

Kim Hyeong-ryul, a peace and anti-nuclear activist, was the first to break the silence on the inter-generational effects of the bombings on March 22, 2002, when he went public with his story of being a child of atomic bomb survivors who had inherited aftereffects from radiation exposure with a statement from the Daegu office of the Korean Youth Corps.

Kim died three years later on May 29, 2005, at the age of 35 due to illnesses stemming from his parents’ exposure to the bomb. There are currently 1,350 members of the Korean Society for the Second Generation Patients Atomic Bomb Survivors, an organization that Kim established.

The Special Act on Support for Korean Atomic Bomb Victims was enacted on May 19, 2016, 11 years after Kim’s death. However, the act restricts the scope of victims only to include those who were present when atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, including those who were in utero. 

The rationale behind that decision is based on the fact that the hereditary transmission of effects from atomic bomb exposure has yet to be scientifically proven. This makes it impossible to track how many descendants of atomic bomb victims are living with such aftereffects. 

Most of the Koreans affected by the atomic bombs hail from Hapcheon, South Gyeongsang Province, as people from that region who had been forcibly mobilized as laborers lived in Hiroshima. This is why Hapcheon is known as the “Hiroshima of Korea.” Sim, Han, and the late Kim all had roots in Hapcheon.

The lives of Korean atomic bomb victims were defined by brutal injustice, starting with Japanese colonial rule and forced mobilization, then the US’ atomic bombings, and finally the indifference and cold treatment from Korean society following independence. But for too long, their plight has been ignored by the international community. 

Hiroshima, Japan, after the US dropped an atomic bomb on the city on Aug. 6, 1945. (courtesy Korea Atomic Bombs Victim Association)

Sim and Han are scheduled to tour six cities in the US, including Seattle, San Francisco, Sacramento, Los Angeles, New York and Washington, with the peace and anti-nuclear organization Solidarity for Peace and Reunification of Korea, or SPARK, from April 20 to May 4. During the tour, they will speak to the experiences of Korean atomic bomb survivors, marked by universal victimhood and the absence of accountability, and urge the US to issue an official apology and reparations for dropping the atomic bombs.  

The delegation will meet with various Korean American organizations and hold meetings with students from San Francisco State University, California State University, Sacramento, University of California, Los Angeles, and the City University of New York. 

A peace and anti-nuclear rally and march will be held near the United Nations on April 26, where Han will give a speech on the importance of creating a world without nuclear weapons. 

They are also to attend one of the events happening on the sidelines of the UN’s Review Conference on the NPT, scheduled for April 30 and May 1. The NPT Review Conference is an international conference that takes place every five years to review the implementation of the NPT, which went into effect in 1970, and to discuss how the international community should approach nuclear weapons. 

The 2026 conference will take place from April 27 to May 22 at the UN headquarters in New York. Sim will give a speech to diplomats from the parties to the NPT at the UN General Assembly Hall on May 1, where he plans to highlight the people’s tribunal for holding the US accountable for the 1945 atomic bombings and ask for the active support and participation from the international civil community. The tribunal is slated to run Nov. 13-15 at Hanshin University’s campus in Seoul, and 12 Korean atomic bomb victims will attend as plaintiffs. 

“During our talks at the review conference and other events, we aim to underscore that the Korean Peninsula is emerging as a flash point of global nuclear confrontation. Achieving denuclearization on the Korean Peninsula could become the starting point to pursue denuclearization worldwide,” said Lee Gi-eun, an activist for the Solidarity for Peace and Reunification of Korea, who will also go to the US as part of the delegation.

“We hope this US trip will bring the voices of Korean atomic bomb victims to the wider international community and help build global sympathy and support to prevent another nuclear catastrophe from playing out on the Korean Peninsula, where nuclear confrontation is intensifying,” said Lee.

By Choi Sang-won, Hankyoreh, South Gyeongsang correspondent