{"id":17241,"date":"2025-08-07T12:38:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-07T12:38:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/?p=17241"},"modified":"2025-08-07T12:38:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-07T12:38:07","slug":"ghana-declares-three-day-period-of-national-mourning-following-deadly-crash-finance-minister-made-acting-defence-minister","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/17241\/ghana-declares-three-day-period-of-national-mourning-following-deadly-crash-finance-minister-made-acting-defence-minister\/","title":{"rendered":"Ghana declares three-day period of national mourning following deadly crash; finance minister made acting defence minister"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Ghana has opened investigations into the crash of a military helicopter that killed all eight people aboard, including the West African country&#8217;s defense and environment ministers and other top officials.<\/p>\n<p>The country has also declared three days of national mourning from Thursday, and all flags are to fly at half mast during the period.<\/p>\n<p>Defense Minister Edward Omane Boamah and Environment Minister Ibrahim Murtala Muhammed were killed, as well as Samuel Sarpong, vice-chair of the National Democratic Congress ruling party, Muniru Mohammed, a top national security adviser, and the four crew members.<\/p>\n<p>Muniru Mohammed is expected to be buried on Thursday in Muslim tradition.<\/p>\n<p>Mourners gathered at the Boamah&#8217;s residence as well as at the party&#8217;s headquarters, and Ghana&#8217;s government described the crash as a &#8220;national tragedy.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>State media reported that the aircraft was a Z-9 helicopter that is often used for transport and medical evacuation.<\/p>\n<p>The cause of the crash was not immediately known.<\/p>\n<p>The Ghanaian military said the helicopter took off in the morning from the capital, Accra, and was heading northwest into the interior toward the gold-mining area of Obuasi in the Ashanti region when it went off the radar. The wreckage was later found in the Adansi area of Ashanti.<\/p>\n<p>Ghana&#8217;s President John Dramani Mahama has asked Finance Minister Cassiel Ato Forson to also act as defence minister after the military helicopter crash.<\/p>\n<div class=\"text-module__text__0GDob text-module__dark-grey__UFC18 text-module__regular__qJJtA text-module__small__sph8i body-module__full_width__kCIGb body-module__small_body__gOmDf article-body__paragraph__2-BtD\" data-testid=\"paragraph-3\">Forson\u00a0was tapped\u00a0to serve as finance minister in January after Mahama returned to power.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ghana has opened investigations into the crash of a military helicopter that killed all eight people aboard, including the West African country&#8217;s defense and environment ministers and other top officials. The country has also declared three days of national mourning from Thursday, and all flags are to fly at half mast during the period. Defense [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":8727,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":0,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","source_name":"Africa News","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,1129,27],"tags":[4263,158,4264,4265],"class_list":["post-17241","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-economy","category-security","category-west-africa","tag-edward-omane-boamah","tag-ghana","tag-ibrahim-murtala-muhammed","tag-samuel-sarpong"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17241","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17241"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17241\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8727"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}