sustained

Explosions were heard in the vicinity of Khartoum International Airport amid uncertainty over its reopening.

The paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have targeted Sudan’s capital Khartoum and its main airport with drones for a fourth consecutive day, as the government-aligned Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) attempts to resume air traffic after regaining control of the city several months ago.

Drones and surface-to-air missiles were heard above the capital in the early hours of Friday morning, residents living close to the Khartoum International Airport told Al Jazeera, before loud explosions went off.

It is unclear whether the capital’s main airport was successfully hit and the extent of the damage.

The attack marks the fourth consecutive day of attacks that began on Tuesday, a day before the airport was scheduled to become operational after at least two years of war.

A single plane operated by the local Badr Airlines landed on Wednesday, before an airport official told AFP on condition of anonymity that the airport’s reopening has been postponed “under further notice” because of incoming attacks.

Al Jazeera’s Hiba Morgan, reporting from Khartoum, said that “despite authorities saying that operations are scheduled to start on October 26, there are concerns that this will not happen”.

The war, which started in April 2023, has killed tens of thousands of people, displaced about 12 million more and left 30 million people in need of humanitarian assistance, making it the world’s largest humanitarian crisis.

Return to Khartoum

The Sudanese military retook the capital from the paramilitary force in March. Since then, residents have been tentatively returning to their homes, often to find them destroyed.

Alfatih Bashir’s house in Omdurman, which he built using all his savings, has collapsed ceilings and damaged walls. “I built it when I was working abroad,” Bashir told Al Jazeera, adding that now he did not posses the necessary funds to repair the damage.

“I’m not working, I’m just sitting idly with my wife and two children. We sometimes barely have enough to eat. How can I even start to rebuild?” he said.

Authorities are still assessing how many houses have been damaged in the conflict, but the scars of the battle between the military and the RSF are visible across the capital.

Another resident, Afaf Khamed, said she fainted when she saw the extent of the damage.

“This house is where we were born, where all our family members got married. I now live here with my sister, and we can’t rebuild because we don’t have anyone to help us,” she told Al Jazeera.

The collapse of the local currency makes reconstruction an impossible feat even for those who have retained a job during the war. While salaries have remained stable, the Sudanese pound spiked from 600 pounds to the US dollar in April 2023, when the conflict started, to 3,500 pounds.

Goods are also hard to come by in the war-torn country, hampering reconstruction. Shop owner Mohammed Ali said materials take too long to arrive because of security checks, and that makes them more expensive. As a consequence, “fewer and fewer people are coming to buy building materials”, he said.

Sudan’s government has pledged to rebuild the capital, but its focus as so far has been on state institutions, while residents are left to figure out how to rebuild on their own.

June 4 (UPI) — Argentina’s birth rate has declined by nearly 40% in the last decade, reaching its lowest level in more than 50 years in 2023.

Statistics from the Ministry of Health show that 460,902 births were recorded in Argentina in 2023, representing a 7% decrease from the previous year and a 41% drop compared to 2014, when the highest number of births was 777,012.

The crude birth rate in 2023 was 9.9 births per 1,000 inhabitants, marking a historic low comparable to that of European countries.

A report from the Austral University of Argentina revealed that the national fertility rate has dropped to 1.4 children per woman, well below the generational replacement rate. This implies a trajectory toward population aging and a possible long-term reduction in the total population if the trend is not reversed.

The analysis adds that the percentage of households without children younger than 18 years of age increased from 44% in 1991 to 57% in 2022. Furthermore, single-person households increased from 13% to 25% over the same period, and single-parent households, mostly headed by women, also showed a sustained increase.

President Javier Milei has expressed concern about the declining birth rate in Argentina, attributing it primarily to the legalization of abortion in 2020 and other progressive policies. During his presidential campaign, Milei expressed his intention to repeal the law and even mentioned the possibility of calling a referendum to do so.

So far, this issue has not been part of the government’s agenda. However, under the guise of reducing public spending, Milei’s administration has reduced the distribution of contraceptives and dismantled sexual health programs, delegating these responsibilities to the provinces. In contrast to the continued decline in births, “voluntary and legal interruptions of pregnancy (IVE/ILE)” have increased from 73,000 in 2021 to more than 107,000 in 2023.

Statistics for 2024 and 2025 are expected to continue to rise.

Although Milei points to abortion as a direct cause, experts attribute the decline in birth rates to a multitude of sociocultural and economic factors. Among these factors are inflation, job instability and the high cost of living, which lead many couples to postpone or forgo parenthood.

The average age for having a first child has shifted to 30-34 years, reflecting a trend toward prioritizing academic training and professional development.

Furthermore, among mothers with lower educational levels, births have decreased by 77% since 2005, while among those with higher educational levels, the decrease was 13% and 7%, respectively.

Research by the consulting firm “Sentimientos Públicos” in Buenos Aires reveals that 20% of those younger than 30 do not want to have children, prioritizing other aspects of their lives. This percentage is lower among millennials (between 30 and 44 years old), where it drops to 11%, and 10% of them cite economic reasons.

The sustained decline in birth and fertility rates in Argentina reflects profound demographic transformations, such as the population aging index, which increased from 29 in 1991 to 60.55 in 2025, and the percentage of people over 85 years of age doubled in 20 years. This change poses challenges for the health care system, education, the pension system, and the economy in general.