The bay is part of the larger Shiranui Sea which is sandwiched between the coast of the Kyūshū mainland and the off-lying islands of Kumamoto and Nagasaki prefectures. The Minamata Disaster Minamata is a small fishing town on the coast of the Shiranui Sea. Minamata Bay is a bay on the west coast of Kyūshū island, located in Kumamoto Prefecture, Japan. Ms. Shinobu Sakamoto and Mr. Koichiro Matsunaga were born along the Minamata Bay where mercury from wastewater at a local company had been discharged from some decades. Both were dramatically affected as the mercury that accumulated had entered the food stream to affect the local population, including their mothers who in turn passed the conditions for Minamata Disease during their pregnancy to their children. Copyright 2020 by Minamata Convention on Mercury, letter to different embassies encouraging to ratify the Convention. Many people in Minamata, in southwest Japan, suffered, and many died, from this serious neurological disease. The Minamata Convention on Mercury, signed in 2013 in Kumamoto, Japan, in the presence of some of these longtime sufferers and their family members, in its preamble recognises the substantial lessons learned from this environmental disaster, and calls for global action for such a tragedy never to be repeated again. On April 21, 1956, a five-year-old girl was examined at the Chisso Corporation's factory hospital in Minamata, Kumamoto, a town on the west coast of the southern island of Kyūshū. The Minamata Convention on Mercury Promotion Network has also sent a letter to different embassies encouraging to ratify the Convention. After a house-t… To mark the 3rd anniversary of the Minamata Convention, two lifelong sufferers of the Minamata Disease raise their voices once more to call for commitment so that mercury poisoning of the magnitude experienced by those living around the Minamata Bay more than 60 years ago, will not be repeated ever again. The girls' mother informed doctors that her neighbour's daughter was also experiencing similar problems. Since then, 123 Parties have ratified the Convention for joint action to make mercury history. The physicians were puzzled by her symptoms: difficulty walking, difficulty speaking, and convulsions. Two days later, her younger sister also began to exhibit the same symptoms and she, too, was hospitalised. Because of its location, townspeople eat a lot of fish. The fish-based diets of the people and cats of Minamata seemed to be the common thread between those showing symptoms, leading scientists to suspect the fish in Minamata Bay were being poisoned.� On 16 of August 2017, the Minamata Convention on Mercury entered into force. Minamata is a small factory town. Today, the by now aging Ms. Sakamoto and Mr. Matsunaga are raising their voices once again to call to current and future generations so that such a tragedy is not repeated. To mark the 3rd anniversary of the Minamata Convention, two lifelong sufferers of the Minamata Disease raise their voices once more to call for commitment so that mercury poisoning of the magnitude experienced by those living around the Minamata Bay more than 60 years ago, will not be repeated ever again.