Battle with time: Italian towns face demise by depopulation

Small Sicilian villages reflect the shifting demographics of economic migration and declining birth rates

The birth of a baby in the small town of Acquaviva Platani, in inland Sicily, is such a rare event that the village bells toll to celebrate the arrival.

With just 800 inhabitants Acquaviva is among thousands of Italian towns risking extinction in the coming decades, as the country faces an unprecedented crisis of population decline.