130 million Too Many? Inside Abiy Ahmed’s  Chilling Vision for Ethiopia 

Eyassu Epheraim G Hanna
London UK 

The Prime Minister who once praised the IMF and the World Bank as Ethiopia’s “mother”  now faces a haunting question: why does he believe that only fifty million Ethiopians are  enough? Milkessa Gemechu, a former member of the Oromo People’s Democratic  Organisation (OPDO), a senior politician, and once a close ally of Abiy Ahmed, has revealed  what he describes as the darkest side of Abiy’s government, his objectives, and even his  personal character. Milkessa, who now serves as a visiting Assistant Professor at Albion  College in Michigan, United States, made this claim in a broadcast on Horn Conversation  (YouTube) titled “50 million is Enough for Ethiopia”. He alleged that Abiy Ahmed had  openly expressed a chilling vision: that Ethiopia’s population should be reduced from over  130 million to only 50 million to make governance easier. 

As an economist trained in population studies, I cannot take such a statement lightly. During  my undergraduate studies, I was first introduced to the Malthusian Theory of Population,  which argues that population growth tends to outpace food production, resulting in recurring  cycles of famine and decline. During my Bachelor of Arts (BA) in Economics at the  University of Portsmouth, I engaged critically with this theory, questioning its assumptions,  and later in postgraduate studies in Development Studies at London South Bank University, I  continued to challenge its validity. 

One particular example that shaped my perspective was the ecological transformation of Lake  Victoria in the mid-20th century, following the introduction of the Nile perch. The perch, a  predatory species, devastated the native cichlid fish population, driving hundreds of species  into extinction. This ecological shock not only disrupted the natural balance of the lake’s  ecosystem but also accelerated eutrophication, caused algal blooms, reduced water clarity,  and transformed the fishery into a monoculture dominated by Nile perch and tilapia. What  this shows is critical: when a population is artificially pressured beyond its natural capacity to  recover, extinction becomes a real possibility. The forced introduction of an external factor— in this case, a predatory fish—led to irreversible extinction of native species. If such  ecological principles can apply to fish, then the deliberate application of similar pressures on  human populations can also drive whole groups to disappearance. 

Human history tragically offers numerous examples of this principle in action. The  Tasmanian Aboriginal peoples were driven to extinction in the nineteenth century through  violent conflict, disease, and forced displacement under European colonisation. The Beothuk  of Newfoundland were wiped out through warfare, starvation, and disease, with the last  known survivor dying in 1829. In the Caribbean, the Taíno people collapsed rapidly after  Columbus’s arrival in 1492, destroyed by conquest, enslavement, and epidemics. In North  America, smaller Indigenous groups such as the Yuki of California were almost annihilated  during the nineteenth-century Gold Rush through massacres and displacement. In South  America, countless small Amazonian tribes vanished during the rubber boom, victims of  slavery raids and exploitation. The Caribs of the Lesser Antilles were similarly decimated by warfare, enslavement, and European diseases, leaving only fragmentary descendant  populations. 

Even in Ethiopia’s own history, population shifts and expansions have reshaped the  demographic landscape in ways that echo today’s concerns. The Oromo expansion from the  south during the late 16th century brought large-scale migration into the central, northern,  eastern, and western regions of the country. This process often involved violent clashes,  displacement, and assimilation, and in many cases, the destruction or absorption of local  populations. Historical records indicate that as many as twenty-five distinct groups were  affected. Among these were the Maya people, who were displaced and likely destroyed  during the course of the Oromo expansion. 

Earlier examples reinforce the same truth. Entire ancient cultures such as the Canaanites and  Philistines disappeared under the advance of empires like the Assyrians and Babylonians.  Central Asian peoples such as the Scythians and Huns vanished through warfare and  assimilation into larger populations. The expansion of the Roman Empire eliminated or  absorbed numerous smaller ethnic groups across Europe and the Mediterranean. In nearly all  cases, the driving forces behind these extinctions were remarkably consistent: massacres,  direct violence, slavery, forced assimilation, cultural suppression, displacement from  ancestral lands, and the spread of foreign diseases. 

What these cases demonstrate is sobering. Both in theory and in practice, it is entirely  possible for sections of a population—or even entire peoples—to become extinct. Just as the  dodo bird was hunted into extinction, so too can human populations vanish when subjected to  sustained political, social, and ecological pressures. To ignore this possibility is to  dangerously underestimate the threat posed by reckless or deliberately harmful population  policies. 

Population control has always been more than an abstract academic debate. It has been  embedded within the strategic thinking of global powers, particularly the United States. One  of the clearest examples is National Security Study Memorandum 200 (NSSM 200), also  known as the Kissinger Report. Issued on December 10, 1974, and declassified in 1989, this  document analysed the implications of rapid population growth in developing countries for  U.S. national security and economic interests. The report argued that rising populations in the  Global South would strain global resources, obstruct economic development, fuel political  instability, and jeopardise U.S. access to critical imports such as fuel and minerals. Africa,  South Asia, and Latin America were identified as areas where population growth posed both  domestic and geopolitical risks. 

NSSM 200 did not stop at diagnosis but offered a strategy for action. It recommended a  comprehensive global population policy, which included the expansion of family planning  services, investment in fertility-control technologies, creation of rural health delivery  systems, and deeper involvement of multilateral organisations such as UNFPA, alongside  NGOs, to implement fertility reduction programs. Perhaps most significantly, it proposed  diplomatic pressure on leaders of developing countries to treat population stabilisation as a  national priority. While wrapped in the language of development, the underlying logic echoed  Thomas Malthus’s categorisation of “preventive checks” (abstinence, birth control) and  “positive checks” (famine, war, epidemics). 

The long-term results of NSSM 200 remain contested. On the one hand, population growth  has continued in most of the countries it identified. India, for example, grew from 1.2 billion  in 2011 to over 1.4 billion by 2023. Turkey rose from 74.7 million in 2014 to 87.5 million in  2024. Egypt’s population grew from nearly 100 million in 2015 to 114.5 million in 2023. 

Brazil expanded from 190.7 million in 2010 to over 212 million in 2024. Nigeria surged from  191 million in 2016 to more than 237 million in 2025. If judged by these statistics, NSSM  200 appears ineffective. 

Yet the picture in Africa, and Ethiopia in particular, is darker. According to UN data, fertility  has indeed declined, though unevenly. Across Africa, births per woman fell from 6.6 in 1960  to 3.8 in 2024, with projections of 2.6 by 2050. Ethiopia’s total fertility rate fell from 4.8 in  2000 to 4.2 in 2019 and further down to 3.8 in 2025. On the surface this resembles a normal  demographic transition. But testimonies and reports suggest coercion has accelerated the  decline, especially targeting specific groups. Allegations of forced sterilisation of Amhara  women under TPLF rule, reportedly overseen by officials such as Dr. Tedros Adhanom  Ghebreyesus, cast a grim light on how population strategies may have been implemented in  practice. Critics argue that his later rise to Director-General of the WHO was less a reward  for his health leadership than recognition of his loyalty to a broader population agenda. 

Nor have these policies been confined to governments. Philanthro-capitalist actors such as  Bill Gates have pledged enormous sums to Africa — in his case around $200 billion — much  of which has been channeled into health and population programs. In Ethiopia alone, the  Gates Foundation has reportedly spent $700 million, funds that critics argue have prioritised  fertility reduction over broader development. This raises a pressing ethical question: is  Ethiopia’s demographic transition truly the result of voluntary choices, or is it being  engineered under external pressure and coercion? 

Arguments in defence of population reduction often rest on economic logic. Reducing  fertility, it is claimed, spurs growth, reduces unemployment, and eases environmental strain.  But examples from the global economy cast doubt on this logic. India, with its population of  over 1.4 billion, has become the world’s fifth-largest economy by nominal GDP and third  largest by purchasing power parity. Its large population has not prevented development; in  fact, it has powered it through labour supply, domestic markets, and innovation. By contrast,  Kenya, with fewer than 60 million people, ranks 108th on the Legatum Prosperity Index, its  low population density offering no guarantee of prosperity. China and Brazil similarly  illustrate how large populations can be harnessed for economic growth rather than seen as a  liability. 

These comparisons undermine the idea that population size is inherently a barrier to  development. The real obstacles lie in governance, corruption, inequality, and external  economic structures. To reduce complex issues of poverty and instability to simplistic “too  many people” arguments is to revert to outdated Malthusian thinking, thinking which has  been discredited by history yet still shapes dangerous policy choices today. 

This background is essential for understanding Ethiopia’s present moment. According to Dr.  Milkessa Gemechu, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has allegedly declared that Ethiopia’s  population should be reduced to fifty million to make governance more manageable. With  Ethiopia’s population currently above 130 million, this would require the elimination of  nearly 80 million people. To put this in perspective, the Holocaust killed six million Jews; the  scale implied by Abiy’s alleged statement is more than thirteen times greater. 

Milkessa suggests that war itself is already being deployed as a method of population  reduction under Abiy’s leadership. Ethiopia has known conflict for generations, but the civil  war between federal forces and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) has been  especially devastating. Independent estimates suggest that between 600,000 and one million  people were killed during the 2020–2022 conflict, many of them young men and women. The  losses extend far beyond those deaths: if one million of those individuals might each have 

had three children, Ethiopia has effectively lost four million lives across a single generation.  War, in other words, does not only destroy the present but erases future populations. 

The significance of Ethiopia’s place in NSSM 200 cannot be ignored here. Ethiopia was  among the thirteen priority countries identified for U.S. population policy, along with India,  Bangladesh, Pakistan, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, Egypt, Turkey, Nigeria, Brazil,  Mexico, and Colombia. Collectively, these countries accounted for nearly half the world’s  population increase at the time. That Ethiopia was singled out more than fifty years ago, and  that its leader today allegedly calls for massive depopulation, cannot be dismissed as  coincidence. 

The demographic trajectory of Ethiopia cannot be explained by natural transition alone.  Allegations of coercive and genocidal measures aimed at the Amhara population have  become increasingly difficult to ignore. A 2013 submission to the Universal Periodic Review  by the Foundation of Ethiopian Human Rights Support (FEHRS) accused the government of  imposing measures to prevent births within the Amhara ethnic group, including mass  sterilisation and deliberate infection with HIV. Testimonies included accounts of women in  their twenties rendered infertile after receiving supposed vaccination treatments, entire  schools emptied of children because no new births occurred, and a census discrepancy of 2.4  million missing people in the Amhara region that experts could not explain. 

Further corroboration came in 2024, when an NGO in special consultative status submitted a  statement to the UN Human Rights Council. This report alleged that Amhara women had  been sterilised without their knowledge or consent under TPLF rule, and documented  atrocities such as the killing of pregnant women to prevent Amhara births, the systematic use  of sexual violence as a weapon of war, and the abduction of children. These acts fall squarely  under the definition of genocide in Article II(d) of the 1948 Genocide Convention: the  imposition of measures intended to prevent births within a group. 

Now we begin to understand where Abiy Ahmed derives his vision. Whether or not he  ultimately succeeds in carrying it out, the intent itself is genocidal, and the expression of such  intent should be enough to warrant his removal. But Abiy is not the only actor here. He is not  solely responsible. He may even be, in some respects, naïve, adopting U.S. policies under the  influence of advisers without fully grasping their implications. His lack of academic depth  and critical training leaves him vulnerable to manipulation. Yet what is more troubling is the  broader complicity of Ethiopian elites, who have allowed themselves to become subservient  to Western agendas at the expense of their own people. 

In this wider saga, Abiy Ahmed is not acting alone. Ethiopia’s intelligentsia, embedded  within international institutions, foreign universities, and domestic offices, have become the  channels through which external agendas are realised. The former health minister of Ethiopia,  Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, now Director-General of the World Health Organization,  stands as a prime example. Similarly, the current health minister, Dr. Mekdes Daba, once a  team leader at the WHO in Geneva, now finds herself on the frontlines of implementing  doctrines rooted in NSSM 200. These are not isolated figures, but part of a larger pattern in  which highly trained Ethiopians, recruited and positioned by foreign powers, advance  policies that align more with external interests than with Ethiopia’s sovereignty. 

In earlier work — such as my article The Enemy Within: Ethiopia’s Struggle Against  Invisible Chains — The Case of Mamo Mihretu — I argued that Ethiopia’s intelligence  networks have been co-opted by foreign actors. Mamo’s case was one example; others  abound. I am currently preparing an essay on the broader treason of Ethiopia’s intelligentsia, 

for the evidence strongly suggests that Ethiopia’s greatest vulnerability is not only external  pressure, but the internal willingness of its own elite to serve external masters. 

The United States and its international arms, including the United Nations, the World Bank,  and the IMF, have developed a unique way of undermining sovereign nations: they recruit  talented members of the intelligentsia, elevate them to positions of influence, and implant  them in key government posts. At the same time, NGOs and philanthropic foundations  mobilise local professionals into global agendas, embedding their priorities in Ethiopia’s  health, education, and development systems. These individuals may present themselves as  serving Ethiopia, but their positions, funding streams, and institutional ties reveal deeper  loyalties. 

The career of Dr. Senait Fisseha illustrates this pattern. According to the Ethio-American  Doctors website, she is both a medical doctor and lawyer, with expertise in reproductive  endocrinology, infertility, and global health. A professor at the University of Michigan, she  received NIH funding for fertility preservation research and significant U.S. government and  foundation support for collaborative work in Ethiopia. She spearheaded the University of  Michigan–Ethiopia Collaborative Platform for Global Health, guiding early partnerships  between the University and the Ethiopian Ministry of Health, St. Paul Hospital Millennium  Medical College, Addis Ababa University, and AAIT. In 2013, the Ministry of Health  honoured her with its highest award. 

Dr. Fisseha went on to establish the Centre for International Reproductive Health Training  (CIRHT) at the University of Michigan with a $25 million grant from an anonymous donor,  advancing reproductive health pre-service training in Sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia.  She co-directed the Medical School’s Path of Excellence in Global Health and chaired the  election campaign and transition of Dr. Tedros Adhanom when he became the first African  Director-General of the WHO in 2017. Recently, under her leadership, the St. Paul Hospital  Millennium Medical College Centre for Reproductive Health was inaugurated in Addis  Ababa. 

The pattern is unmistakable. With her funding, networks, and close ties to both former and  current health ministers, individuals like Dr. Senait become instruments for the  implementation of U.S. population doctrines within Ethiopia. The consequence has been a  population on a declining trajectory. This is why Abiy could declare that Ethiopia only needs  fifty million people. It is through the work of such actors that Ethiopia’s demographic future  is being engineered, not by foreign armies, but by Ethiopians themselves — those elevated to  high office by external powers.

Through the Centre for International Reproductive Health Training (CIRHT), in collaboration  with Ethiopia’s Federal Ministry of Health and ten partner university hospitals, Dr. Senait  Fisseha has overseen the expansion of what is officially presented as an initiative to “improve  reproductive health services” across the country. Under this program, MICHU clinics — a  name derived from the Amharic word for “comfort” and chosen to honour the University of  Michigan’s role in shaping Ethiopia’s reproductive health system — have been established in  eight hospitals. Publicly, these clinics are described as centres for “compassionate and  respectful reproductive health care” for women and couples. In reality, they represent the  institutionalisation of foreign-designed fertility control programs, advancing a population  agenda rooted in the logic of NSSM 200 rather than the organic needs of Ethiopian families. 

As founder of CIRHT, Prof. Senait has worked closely with the Ministry of Health to embed  these clinics into the very core of Ethiopia’s medical schools and hospital networks. This  ensures that a new generation of Ethiopian doctors and health professionals is systematically  trained to prioritise population reduction as a development strategy. By branding this as  “quality improvement” and “modernisation,” the initiative masks its deeper function: creating  an infrastructure through which coercive depopulation policies can be normalised and  perpetuated. 

The reach of this network is now national. MICHU clinics operate in Addis Ababa at St. Paul  Millennium Medical College, Black Lion Hospital, and Ghandi Hospital; at Hiwot Fana  Hospital in Haromaya; Ayder Comprehensive Specialized Hospital in Mekelle; Hawassa  University Referral Hospital in Hawassa; and at Felege Hiwot and Debretabor hospitals in  Bahir Dar and Debre Tabor. This deliberate geographic spread ensures that every major  region is penetrated, creating a comprehensive framework for implementing population  control measures under the guise of reproductive healthcare. 

Seen in this light, MICHU is not a project of comfort but a mechanism of compliance. It is  the concrete expression of U.S. population doctrine on Ethiopian soil — the local face of a  global depopulation strategy first articulated in the Kissinger Report and now advanced by  Ethiopian elites acting as its instruments. 

And here the dots connect back to Abiy Ahmed’s chilling declaration that Ethiopia only  needs fifty million people. His vision cannot be implemented by speeches alone; it requires  infrastructure, networks, and trained professionals who can carry it out under the cover of  legitimacy. The MICHU clinics provide exactly that machinery. They are the operational  tools that translate an abstract doctrine of depopulation into everyday medical practice,  ensuring that what begins as a policy statement can become a lived demographic reality.

The MICHU clinics are nothing less than the modern equivalent of the gas chambers in Nazi  concentration camps. Both serve the same grim purpose: the destruction of life under the  guise of necessity, both justified by the claim that certain sections of society are unwanted,  disposable, and without value. History reminds us of that Nazi medical doctors worked inside  those camps, lending scientific cover and professional legitimacy to acts of extermination. In  this light, the role of Dr. Senait cannot be seen as any less evil. By using her medical  authority to advance programs that deny Ethiopian women the right to bear children, she  stands in continuity with those doctors who once used medicine as a weapon of genocide. 

The betrayal of Dr. Senait does not end with turning against her people and her country in the  name of advancing women’s health. To speak plainly — and at the risk of being personal — while she herself is a mother of four, she has been instrumental in promoting programs that  deny Ethiopian women the right to have children of their own. 

Now the dots connect. Abiy’s chilling statement, Ethiopia’s demographic decline, the legacy  of NSSM 200, the complicity of international institutions, and the recruitment of Ethiopian  elites all form one consistent picture. Whether Abiy ultimately carries out his genocidal  vision is uncertain, but the intention alone is catastrophic. His removal is not only justified  but urgent. More broadly, Ethiopia’s people must awaken to the invisible chains binding  them: the doctrines of depopulation, the capture of their intelligentsia, and the systematic use  of their own leaders against them. 

The danger is not hypothetical. History has shown us repeatedly that populations can  disappear under sustained assault. Ethiopia today stands on such a precipice. Unless the  nation recognises and resists these strategies, it risks fulfilling the darkest prophecy of its  current Prime Minister — that eighty million of its people will be erased by the hand of their  own government, aided and abetted by an elite more loyal to foreign agendas than to the  survival of their own people. 

Biblically, the act of abortion or the termination of pregnancy has long been regarded as a  grave sin. In the Book of Enoch—an ancient Jewish text preserved in full only in Ge’ez and  considered canonical by the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church—we find one of the  earliest condemnations of tampering with unborn life. The text describes how fallen angels  corrupted humanity by teaching forbidden knowledge. Concerning one of them, Kasyade, it  says: 

“The name of the fifth is Kasyade: he discovered to the children of men every wicked stroke  of spirits and of demons; the stroke of the embryo in the womb, to diminish it …” (1 Enoch  69:12–13). 

In Ethiopian Orthodox tradition, 1 Enoch (Henok) is not a marginal text but a canonical  scripture, read alongside the Old and New Testaments. It has shaped Ethiopian Christianity’s  moral outlook for centuries. Within this framework, the passage about Kasyade is often  interpreted as a condemnation of abortion and the destruction of unborn life, portraying it  not as medical knowledge but as a dark art revealed by rebellious spirits. 

Seen through this lens, modern practices of abortion—whether performed by surgical  instruments such as forceps, or by pharmaceutical means—are not innovations of science but  rather continuations of the same forbidden knowledge denounced in scripture. What was once  revealed by fallen angels is now institutionalized in clinics and universities under the banner  of “reproductive rights.”

This creates a troubling parallel. Professionals who promote abortion or global population control programmes—regardless of the medical or developmental language used—are, from  a biblical and Ethiopian Orthodox perspective, engaged in what the Book of Enoch condemns  as the work of Kasyade. For example, highly celebrated figures such as Dr. Senait Fisseha,  who has championed reproductive health policies and training initiatives in Ethiopia and  abroad, may be praised by international institutions. Yet from the vantage point of Ethiopia’s  own sacred canon, their activities echo the fallen angel’s corrupt teaching: diminishing life in  the womb. 

Conclusion:  

It is important to clarify that I am not opposed to justifiable, healthy, and consent-based  fertility treatments or family planning. Population management, when pursued ethically, must  be rooted in economic growth, social development, and education — not imposed through  coercive methods such as forced sterilisation, deceptive vaccination campaigns, or the brutal  instruments of war and famine. The latter approaches are unethical, genocidal, and crimes  against humanity. 

In reflecting on Ethiopia’s current relationship with the United States and the wider West,  one cannot help but recall the ecological lesson of Lake Victoria. There, the introduction of  the Nile perch devastated the native cichlid fish, driving countless species to extinction. In  this metaphor, we Ethiopians are the cichlids — vulnerable, native, and struggling to survive  — while the West acts as the Nile perch, a powerful predator reshaping the ecosystem to its  advantage. Unless we recognise this imbalance and resist, we risk meeting the same fate as  the vanished species of Lake Victoria. 

I call on Ethiopia’s intelligentsia — across all academic disciplines — to examine this case  critically and to contribute what they can to save our nation from demographic decline and  possible eradication. This is not a matter for silence or indulgent scholarship: it is a moral and  generational responsibility. We may not see the final outcome in our lifetimes, but we must  act now so that future generations do not inherit a country hollowed out by a foreign assault  dressed in the language of money, academic prestige, and economic rationality. At the same  time, I call on Ethiopian professionals who work to advance foreign interests at the expense  of their own people to stop: such conduct is nothing short of treason and should be the subject  of criminal investigation and appropriate legal consequences. This is a new form of ባንዳ — collaboration with external enemies — and it is in many respects worse than serving an  occupying force in wartime.

Editor’s Note : Views in the article do not necessarily reflect the views of borkena.com  

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