Obama's origami figures to be displayed in Hiroshima museum

Tokyo, June 8: The origami cranes made by US President Barack Obama, who donated them to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum during his visit to the city, will be exhibited in the museum, starting Thursday.

Along with the cranes, the museum will also display the message the US leader wrote in its guest book, a museum spokesperson told Efe news on Wednesday.

"We have known the agony of war. Let us now find the courage, together, to spread peace, and pursue a world without nuclear weapons," wrote Obama, the first sitting US president to visit Hiroshima, where Washington had dropped an atomic bomb on August 6, 1945.

During his historic visit to the city in May, the US leader presented two cranes to the museum, which explains the effects of the bomb on the city and its inhabitants, and gave another two to local students.

These figures, made by folding paper, have become a symbol of peace ever since they were popularised by Sadako Sasaki, a victim of the nuclear bombing who died at the age of 11 of leukaemia.

The US president visited Japan to attend the G7 summit, held in the Ise-Shima national park, from where he travelled to Hiroshima to pay tribute to the victims of the atomic bombing.

IANS