By Musa Mdluli

MBABANE:A helicopter crash has killed all eight people on board, including the Nation’s Defence and Environment Ministers, Aljazeera reported this week, quoting a statement released by the Ghana Government.

Defence Minister Edward Omane Boamah and Environment Minister Ibrahim Murtala Muhammed were among the victims of the crash in the southern Ashanti region of the country, said Julius Debrah, Chief of Staff to President John Mahama, on Wednesday.

“The President and the government extend their condolences and solidarity to the families of our comrades and soldiers who fell in their service to the nation,” said Debrah.

It has been reported that, among the victims were Alhaji Mohammad Muniru Limuna, Deputy National Security coordinator and former Minister of Agriculture, and Samuel Sarpong, Vice Chairman of Mahama’s National Democratic Congress(NDC) party.

Boamah was helming Ghana’s defence ministry at a time when armed groups across its northern border in Burkina Faso had become increasingly restive.

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