A baby’s cry breaks three decades of silence in an Italian village
Lara Bussi Trabucco is the first baby born in Pagliara dei Marsi in nearly 30 years. Her arrival has lifted the population to about 20 and brought new life to a place long marked by decline.
In Pagliara dei Marsi, a tiny mountain village on the slopes of Mount Girifalco in Italy's Abruzzo region, cats outnumber people by far.
They slip through narrow stone lanes, nap on sun-warmed walls and wander in and out of homes, filling the quiet with soft purrs.
As The Guardian reports, that silence was finally broken in March, when the village celebrated something it had not seen in almost three decades: the birth of a child.
Keep updated, follow The Business Standard's Google news channel
Lara Bussi Trabucco is the first baby born in Pagliara dei Marsi in nearly 30 years. Her arrival has lifted the population to about 20 and brought new life to a place long marked by decline.
When she was christened in the small church opposite her home, almost the entire community turned out – cats included. In a village unused to prams and toys, Lara has quickly become the main attraction.
"People who didn't even know Pagliara dei Marsi existed have come just because they heard about Lara," her mother, Cinzia Trabucco, told The Guardian. "At nine months old, she's already famous."
Yet Lara's birth, while a moment of joy, also highlights a deeper crisis. Italy is facing what Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has called a "demographic winter".
According to figures cited by The Guardian from Istat, Italy's statistics agency, births fell to a historic low of 369,944 in 2024. The fertility rate dropped to 1.18 children per woman, among the lowest in the European Union.
Preliminary data for 2025 suggest the decline is continuing, with Abruzzo – already sparsely populated – seeing one of the sharpest falls. Between January and July, births in the region dropped by more than 10% compared with the same period last year.
Pagliara dei Marsi may be small, but it reflects a wider picture of ageing communities, closing schools and shrinking workforces that are putting pressure on public services across the country.
"Depopulation here has been drastic," said the village's mayor, Giuseppina Perozzi, who lives just a few doors from Lara's family. She said she hoped the baby's arrival would inspire others to return and start families.
Trabucco, 42, moved to the village from near Rome, where she had worked as a music teacher, drawn by a desire to raise a family far from city life. She met her partner, Paolo Bussi, 56, a local construction worker, a few years ago.
Like other new parents, they received a €1,000 state "baby bonus" and a monthly child benefit, measures introduced by Meloni's government to encourage births.
But as The Guardian notes, money alone cannot solve the problem. Childcare remains scarce, and many women leave work when they become mothers, often struggling to return.
Trabucco worries about Lara's future schooling too: the village has not had a teacher for decades, and nearby schools face the risk of closure as pupil numbers fall.
"Financial help is not enough," she said. "The whole system needs to change."
About an hour away lies Sulmona, a once-busy town now fighting to save its maternity ward. The unit delivered just 120 babies last year, far below the level required to keep funding. If it closes, expectant mothers would have to travel long distances, sometimes in harsh winter conditions.
Gynaecologist Gianluca Di Luigi recalled to The Guardian a woman who spent hours stuck in a snowstorm while in labour before reaching hospital for an emergency caesarean. Midwives and local leaders argue that national targets no longer reflect the reality of shrinking populations.
Beyond hospitals, experts say Italy also needs to address job insecurity, youth emigration and a lack of support for working parents. Others point to the need for better education on fertility preservation, an issue still clouded by cultural and political resistance.
For now, in Pagliara dei Marsi, hope rests in one small child. Lara's laughter echoes through lanes that had grown used to silence, a fragile but powerful reminder of what is at stake for villages like hers – and for Italy itself.
