ACCRA: Ghana’s defence and environment ministers were killed in a helicopter crash on Wednesday, the presidency said, hours after the armed forces reported a chopper carrying three crew and five passengers dropped off the radar.

Television station Joy News broadcast cell phone footage from the crash scene showing smouldering wreckage amid a heavily forested area earlier in the day, before it was revealed that ministers Edward Omane Boamah and Ibrahim Murtala Muhammed were among the dead. Boamah became President John Mahama’s defence minister earlier this year shortly after Mahama’s swearing-in in January.

Muhammed was serving as the minister of environment, science and technology.

Everyone onboard was killed in the accident, authorities said, while Ghanaian media reported that the helicopter was on its way to an event on illegal mining — a major environmental issue in the west African country.

“The president and government extend our condolences and sympathies to the families of our comrades and the servicemen who died in service to the country,” said Mahama’s chief of staff Julius Debrah. Boamah was leading Ghana’s defence ministry at a time when jihadist activity across its northern border in Burkina Faso has become increasingly restive.

While Ghana has so far avoided a jihadist spillover from the Sahel — unlike neighbours Togo and Benin — observers have warned of increased arms trafficking and of militants from Burkina Faso crossing the porous border to use Ghana as a rear base.

Published in Dawn, August 7th, 2025