Nuclear weapons should be relics of the past – ALJAZEERA

“As the world marks the International Day against Nuclear Tests, we should all join the fight for global disarmament.”

By Karipbek Kuyukov, the Honorary Ambassador of The ATOM Project, ALJAZEERA | September 26, 2023 aljazeera.com

The Semipalatinsk Test Site in northern Kazakhstan, where hundreds of nuclear bombs were detonated by the Soviet Union until 1989, is now dotted with craters and boreholes [CTBTO Preparatory Commission/Wikimedia Commons]

In the quiet and peaceful steppe of Kazakhstan, a dark and ominous legacy lingers beneath the surface. Over four decades between 1949 and 1989, 456 nuclear bombs were detonated by the Soviet Union at the Semipalatinsk Test Site in northern Kazakhstan.

While the echoes of nuclear explosions have long faded, the scars of nuclear testing run deep. More than 1.5 million people in Kazakhstan were exposed to the toxic fallout from those tests. Countless lives were irreversibly altered, and the environment was forever scarred. I am a living testament to the horrors of nuclear testing, as I was born without arms due to the effects of nuclear radiation.

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