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Obama makes history with Hiroshima visit

US President Barack Obama (L) walks off Marine One upon landing in Hiroshima on May 27, 2016/AFP

US President Barack Obama (L) walks off Marine One upon landing in Hiroshima on May 27, 2016/AFP

HIROSHIMA, Japan, May 27 – President Barack Obama arrived at Hiroshima’s atomic bomb park Friday, becoming the only sitting US leader to set foot on ground that was seared by the world’s first nuclear attack.

Obama was greeted by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park, where he was due to lay a wreath at the cenotaph to victims of the 1945 nuclear strike.

The trip comes more than seven decades after the Enola Gay bomber dropped its deadly atomic payload, dubbed “Little Boy”, over the western Japanese city.

The bombing claimed the lives of 140,000 people, some of whom died immediately in a ball of searing heat, while many succumbed to injuries or radiation-related illnesses in the weeks, months and years afterwards.

A second nuclear bomb was dropped on Nagasaki three days later.

Coming in Obama’s final year in office, the visit also marks seven years since he used his trademark soaring rhetoric to call for the elimination of atomic arms in a landmark speech in Prague that helped him win the Nobel Peace Prize.

And while the world today appears no closer to that lofty vision, Obama is expected to use the symbolism of his presence in Hiroshima to highlight a push for peace.

Anticipation was high in Hiroshima, where crowds of Japanese and visiting foreigners gathered near the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park where Obama was to appear.

“We welcome President Obama,” said 80-year-old Toshiyuki Kawamoto.

“I hope this historic visit to Hiroshima will push for the movement of abolishing nuclear weapons in the world.”

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Japanese and American flags flew on the street in front of the site, with a city official saying it was the first time the Stars and Stripes had been raised there.

– ‘Painful divides’ –

Obama, who arrived at a US military base west of Hiroshima to address troops after attending a Group of Seven summit elsewhere in Japan, is expected to lay flowers at the cenotaph in the memorial park in Hiroshima and will be accompanied by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

The cenotaph lies in the shadow of a domed building, whose skeleton has been left standing in silent testament to the victims of the first ever nuclear attack.

He told American troops at a base in Iwakuni in the west of the country that visiting Hiroshima was a chance to “honour” the memory of all who died in the war.

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