From April 27 to May 22, 2026, SPARK (Solidarity for Peace and Reunification of Korea), together with Korean atomic bomb survivors, is conducting a speaking tour across major cities in the United States in conjunction with the 11th Review Conference of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons at the United Nations Headquarters in New York.

Below are the full testimonies of two plaintiffs participating in the International People’s Tribunal on the Atomic Bombings (Seoul, November 2026).

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Shim Jintae

First-Generation Korean Atomic Bomb Victim; Head of Hapcheon Branch, Korea Atomic Bomb Victims Association

My name is Shim Jintae, head of the Hapcheon branch of the Korea Atomic Bomb Victims Association. I was born in 1943 in Eba-machi, Hiroshima, Japan. At that time, Japan illegally colonized the Korean Peninsula. Japan plundered all resources for war. My father lived in Hapcheon, his hometown, but was forcibly conscripted in 1941 and taken to Hiroshima, Japan. Afterwards, my mother also moved to Hiroshima and worked at a munitions factory.

Most of the conscripted Hapcheon Korean people went to Hiroshima, Japan. That's why Hapcheon is called Korea's Hiroshima. I was 3 years old when the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. At that time, my mother said that our house collapsed due to the atomic bomb, the whole of Hiroshima became dark, and people were lying dead here and there.

My family survived by fortune, we found a boat and returned to Korea. But what awaited us was extreme poverty and another war. Many of our compatriots lost their lives when their boat capsized during a typhoon on their way back. My father died during the Korean War. When I was only eight years old, I became the head of the family and barely survived by peeling tree bark and eating grass roots with my mother. I starved more often than I ate. Added to the unfortunate situation, I was suffering from an unknown skin disease that causes hives on my body. I was sick, kicked out of school because I couldn't pay tuition, and couldn't attend school properly due to the war.

Although I have nothing and have learned nothing, I have been working as the head of the Hapcheon branch of the Korean Atomic Bomb Victims Association from 2001 to the present, and have watched Korean atomic bomb victims suffer the pain due to the aftereffects of radiation exposure for over 20 years.

Of the 700,000 victims of the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, 70,000, or one-tenth, were Koreans. South Korea is the country most affected by the atomic bomb after Japan. There are still 1,600 first-generation Korean atomic bomb victims still alive. Furthermore, due to the hereditary effects of radiation exposure, the suffering caused by the atomic bomb continues to afflict not only the second generation of survivors, but also the third and fourth generations.

Japan is the nation that instigated the war. The true victims of the atomic bombings are the Koreans who were conscripted under Japanese colonial rule and exposed to the radiation. We wish to ask: Why must Koreans—who were forcibly mobilized and dragged away by Japan, a war criminal state—perish in the blasts or suffer and die from mysterious, incurable illnesses? We wish to ask the U.S. government, which dropped the atomic bombs, with all sincerity: Why must we die like this?

Even now—81 years after the atomic bombs were dropped—neither the Japanese nor the U.S. government has offered a single word of apology for their illegal colonial rule or the atomic bomb drop. The deep-seated anguish accumulated in the hearts of myself and the descendants of Korean atomic bomb victims—who have endured and survived the horrors of war—is inexpressibly profound. Under no circumstances should innocent civilians be killed or injured as a result of war.

The Korean government, too, has long neglected and mistreated the Korean atomic bomb victims—those who survived the blasts and continue to live with immense suffering—as well as their descendants. Even when Japan enacted the Relief Law to support atomic bomb survivors, we were only able to secure that support by personally filing lawsuits in Japanese courts. We have no country We, the victims ourselves, have had to step forward to fight for the realization of our own rights. What has our country ever done for us? It merely looks over its shoulder at the United States, then at Japan. Is this truly a sovereign nation?

Throughout my life, I have regarded it as an utterly inconceivable absurdity that victims should exist without any perpetrators to accept responsibility. Consequently, I personally attended the 9th NPT Review Conference in 2015 to make the international community aware—for the very first time—of the existence of Korean atomic bomb victims. I also personally sought out an American attorney to inquire whether it would be possible to file a lawsuit against the United States, the nation that dropped the atomic bombs; however, the answer I received was that it was not possible.

Nevertheless, I did not give up. Determined to find a legal avenue by any means necessary, I joined forces with the civic organization SPARK to organize an "International People's Tribunal on the Atomic Bomb." This tribunal seeks to challenge the illegality of the 1945 atomic bombings and demand that the United States acknowledge its responsibility, offer an apology, and provide compensation. I am participating in this People's Tribunal as a plaintiff.

If the United States were to admit that the atomic bombings were a wrongful act, what other nation would ever dare to employ nuclear weapons again? As someone who has personally endured the devastating aftermath of the atomic bombings, I firmly believe that true peace cannot exist in this world as long as nuclear weapons remain. We, the Korean survivors of the atomic bombings, will continue to oppose the development and use of nuclear weapons until they are dismantled into scrap metal; furthermore, we will persist in demanding—until the very end—that the perpetrators accept responsibility and offer both apologies and compensation to the victims.

If the state fails to accept responsibility for the atomic bombings of 1945, it becomes exceedingly difficult to hold accountable any nation that might seek to employ nuclear weapons in the present day. For this reason, I intend to dedicate the remainder of my life to the creation of a "peaceful, nuclear-free world." At the upcoming 11th Review Conference of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) —in which I will be participating—I pledge to exert every ounce of my strength to convey the stark reality of the Korean atomic bombing survivors to the international community. Moreover, this coming November, through the International People's Tribunal on Atomic Bombings to be held in Korea, Korean survivors will—for the very first time—formally demand apologies and compensation from the United States. I earnestly hope that, through your deep interest and active participation, you will join us in holding the United States accountable.

Han Jeong-soon

President, Second-Generation Korean Atomic Bomb Survivors Association

My name is Han Jeong-soon, the President of the Korean Atomic Bomb Victims Association's Second-Generation Patient Group. My parents, unable to survive the harsh exploitation in Korea by the Japanese, moved to Japan, where 14 of us lived together in Hiroshima. In 1945, when the United States dropped an atomic bomb, my grandmother and uncles suffered severe burns on their legs and faces, and my mother, who was pregnant, was crushed by a collapsing wall and barely saved her life, but her spine was injured and she suffered pain for the rest of her life.

A year after the bombing, my parents returned to our hometown in Hapcheon, Korea. However, my older brother, who had been affected by the radiation before birth, passed away a year later from the effects. My siblings and I have all suffered from diseases caused by the long-lasting effects of the atomic bombing. We've faced various health issues, including strokes, heart problems, chest pain, and the youngest even lost all their teeth at a young age.

The year after the radiation exposure, my parents returned to their hometown, Hapcheon, Korea, but my older brother, who had been exposed in utero, died from the aftereffects of the radiation exposure a year after he was born. My father and eldest brother, who were exposed to radiation in Hiroshima, died from heart disease, and my eldest sister also died without knowing why.

There are a total of 6 siblings born in Korea, including me. All of my brothers are suffering from diseases caused by the aftereffects of the atomic bomb. My eldest sister had a cerebral infarction, and my second sister had a bad shoulder joint, so she had surgery on both arms. My third sister and I, the fifth oldest, underwent surgery for a disease called femoral avascular necrosis, and my youngest brother suffers from a disease that causes his teeth to sink at a young age, causing all of his teeth to fall out. My mother felt it was all her fault, felt sorry for her children, and did not allow us to even talk about the atomic bomb.

As the fifth of six siblings, my legs began to hurt when I was young, and when I entered my 20s, I could no longer walk or stand properly. Even going to work was difficult. To make matters worse, the first child born a year after marriage was born with cerebral palsy. Doctors said it would be difficult for the child to live past the age of 10. I felt like the sky was falling.

Even after giving birth, my leg pain got worse. The diagnosis was ‘avascular necrosis of the femur’, a disease that causes necrosis of the hip joint. At the time, I couldn't walk due to the extreme pain, so I had to use my arms as legs and push my butt until my palms were covered in blood, and going out was impossible. Because I was always pushing the ground with my hands, the floor of my house was soaked with blood from my scraped hands.

In a situation where I had no one to rely on, there were times when I felt like it was all my fault, including my disabled son's pain and extreme poverty, and I wanted to give up on this world with my children. I also hoped that my sick son would be reborn and live in a better environment without the illness. However, because I have children, I have not given up on life. My eldest son, who was born with cerebral palsy and was not expected to live past the age of 10, is now 44 years old. He is unable to do anything on his own, but to stare at the ceiling, 

I managed to get artificial joint surgery with help from those around me, but it wasn't permanent. Since then, I have had 12 surgeries, including 6 reoperations, uterine fibroid surgery, and gallbladder removal surgery. Even now, the pain continues without end.

In the past, I vaguely thought the reason for my illness was because of the atomic bomb. However, in 2002, when I met Kim Hyeong-ryul, who came out as a second-generation atomic bomb victim for the first time in Korea, and watched a video of Chung Sook-hee, the President of the Second Generation Atomic Bomb Patients Association who suffered from the same illness as me, I realized that my suffering began with the atomic bombing in 1945.

The damage from nuclear weapons is cruelly passed down from generation to generation. The war is still ongoing in my body. Second-generation Korean atomic bomb victims like me are living a life of pain without even being recognized as atomic bomb victims, despite suffering from the inheritance of radiation exposure for their entire lives because their parents were atomic bomb victims. My body is evidence of hereditary nuclear damage. I am truly outraged by the reality that even 81 years after the atomic bomb was dropped, the second and third generation atomic bomb victims are not recognized as victims.

As the President of the Second Generation Atomic Bomb Patients Association, I am trying not only to care for my own pain, but also to care for second generation patients and embrace their pain as my own. My heart breaks when I see patients who pass away. Second- and third-generation atomic bomb victims, who were born with the pain of war and whose pain only ends on the day they die, spend their entire lives in fear of becoming a burden to their families when they should focus on taking care of their own sick bodies. I feel deep sadness every time second-generation atomic bomb victims pass away without even being recognized as atomic bomb victims.

However, Japan, which started the war, and the United States, which dropped nuclear weapons, have not yet acknowledged or made a single apology to the victims. I would like to appeal this injustice wherever possible. I want to create a nuclear-free world where there are no more nuclear victims like me by receiving recognition, apology, and compensation from the United States for the nuclear bombing. This request is also the will of Kim Hyeong-ryul, who passed away at the young age of 35 due to the aftereffects of radiation exposure.

Therefore, I am joining as a plaintiff in the Seoul International People’ Tribunal on Atomic Bomb, which holds the United States responsible for dropping the atomic bomb. I believe the tribunal will be a space where the voices of Korean atomic bomb victims who have been oppressed can be heard. It is unimaginably cruel to live as a nuclear victim for a lifetime. Humanity must not repeat such cruel acts, nuclear war must never be repeated by mankind ever again.