Survivors of Hiroshima to be honoured

Hiroshima University said Thursday it would bestow honorary doctorates on three former students from Southeast Asia who survived the 1945 atomic bombing of the Japanese city.

The degrees will be given to former Brunei prime minister Pengiran Yusuf, 91, Hasan Rahaya, 91, a former Indonesian parliamentarian, and Abdul Razak, 87, who taught Japanese in Malaysia, the university said.

The three were among a group of students from Japanese-occupied Southeast Asia studying in Japan during World War II under a programme designed to provide young foreigners with pro-Japanese education.

According to the university, they were forced to stop their studies after the western Japanese city was hit by the atomic bomb dropped by US forces, killing an estimated 140,000 people instantly.

They were among nine foreign students at the university who were exposed to radiation from the bomb, a university official said, adding that two of them died instantly.

The university plans to send officials to the three countries early next year to present the degrees to the three, he said.