Kido said he hoped the leaders would spend more time than former U.S. President Barack Obama did in his rushed 2016 visit through the museum, which includes exhibits of mangled buildings and bodies in the aftermath of the attack.

“I earnestly want the leaders to have a firm understanding of what the atomic bombs did to human beings,” Kido said. “Many people think of the mushroom clouds, but they often don’t know what happened to the people under them.”

He urged the leaders to explain to people in their countries what they learned about the cruelty of nuclear weapons. “Each leader should do that so every citizen understands. Otherwise, the real threat of nuclear bombs cannot be understood,” he said.

“For many years, atomic bombing survivors have raised the torch of achieving peace by denuclearization. We need younger and stronger hands who can succeed the torch and raise it even higher so its light can be seen from around the world,” said Thurlow, who was only 1.8 kilometers (1.1 miles) away from ground zero in Hiroshima at the time of the bombing.

Atomic bomb survivors look to G7 summit in Hiroshima as a ‘sliver of hope’ for nuclear disarmament – ABC News