Representatives from 93 nations and the European Union are expected to attend this year's peace ceremony on Aug. 6 to commemorate the victims of the U.S. atomic bombing of Hiroshima in 1945, the city government said Friday.
Among the world's nuclear powers, the United States, Britain, France and Russia plan to send envoys to the ceremony, while China will not attend. If realized, the number of nations joining the event will be the second-largest since 2015, when 100 states were represented.
Among de facto nuclear power states, Israel will be represented at the annual event, while Pakistan will not participate. North Macedonia is expected to send a delegate for the first time, the city government said.
The city government will scale down this year's ceremony like the previous year to prevent the spread of coronavirus infections, limiting the number of guests with seats to less than 10 percent of those in usual years to around 880.
The number of representing families of the victims is expected to be 24 at the ceremony, the second lowest ever.
Hiroshima Mayor Kazumi Matsui will deliver a peace declaration in the 50-minute ceremony at the Peace Memorial Park, which will start at 8 a.m.
The world's first atomic bomb exploded over the western Japan city on Aug. 6, 1945, in World War II, killing an estimated 140,000 people by the end of that year. A second atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, southwestern Japan, on Aug. 9 that year, and Japan surrendered to the Allied Powers six days later, marking the end of the war.
