The Federal Government has inaugurated an eight-man committee of inquiry to unravel circumstances that led to the death of nine illegal miners when a mining pit collapsed on them last week at Dogon Daji village in Maru Local Government Area of Zamfara State.

Minister of Mines and Steel Development, Musa Muhammad Sada, who set up the committee yesterday in Abuja, said the country cannot afford to continue to lose its citizens to illegal mining.

A statement by the ministry's spokesman Mashal Gundu said members of the board of inquiry were drawn from the ministry, Nigerian Mining and Geosciences Society, Nigerian Society of Mining Engineers, Zamfara State Ministry of Environment, Nigerian Police Force, Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps.