A statue meant to promote world peace depicting a 12-year-old girl killed in the atomic bombing of Hiroshima is missing from Seattle’s Peace Park.
The Stranger reports someone cut the Sadako Sasaki statue at her ankles, leaving only her feet at the park.
“The removal of this statue is an affront to the legacy of Floyd Schmoe, and in the face of increasing political and wartime violence, is an unfortunate reminder of the deterioration of the dream of world peace,” the group said in a statement released to AsAmNews.
Kyodo News reports local metal scrap dealers have been notified to be on the lookout for the statue.
The story of Sadako Sasaki is both legendary and an inspiration to peace-loving people worldwide. She developed leukemia after the atomic bomb drop on Hiroshima in World War II. In Japan its believed if you fold a thousand cranes, you will be granted one wish for peace. Sasaki filled her hospital room with cranes in hopes for both world peace and for her health to get better. Unfortunately, she passed away at the age of 12.
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The Quakers have also joined in calling for the return of the statue.
“She (Sadako) is very, very loved, not just by me or the Quaker meeting but by tens of thousands of children that to this day read a book placed on her life,” said Colleen Kimseylov of the Quaker group, University Friends Meeting to KING5. “Someone was very brazen indeed.”
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