Ghana’s defense and environment ministers were killed Wednesday in a helicopter crash, the presidency confirmed, hours after the military reported the aircraft with eight people on board had vanished from radar.
Edward Omane Boamah became President John Mahama's defense minister earlier this year, shortly after Mahama's swearing-in in January.
Ibrahim Murtala Muhammed was serving as the minister of environment, science and technology.
Everyone on board was killed in the accident, authorities said.
"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 helming Ghana's defense ministry at a time when terrorist activity across its northern border in Burkina Faso had become increasingly restive.
While Ghana has so far avoided a terrorist 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.
A medical doctor by training, Boamah's career in government included stints as communications minister during Mahama's previous 2012-2017 tenure. Before that, he was the deputy minister for the environment.
The Ghanaian Armed Forces had reported earlier Wednesday that an air force helicopter had fallen off radar after taking off from Accra just after 9:00 a.m. It had been headed towards the town of Obuasi, northwest of the capital.
The statement had said that three crew and five passengers were aboard, without specifying at the time that the ministers were among them.
Alhaji Muniru Mohammed, Ghana's deputy national security coordinator and former agriculture minister, was among the dead, along with Samuel Sarpong, vice chairman of Mahama's National Democratic Congress party.
As Ghana has pursued increased diplomacy with Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, all ruled by juntas who have broken with the ECOWAS west African regional bloc, Boamah led a delegation to Ouagadougou in May.
He had been set to release a book titled "A Peaceful Man in an African Democracy," about former president John Atta Mills, who died in 2012.
All flags were to be flown at half-staff, Debrah said, while the presidency said Mahama had canceled his official activities for the day.
