Eight shot and burned in Guyana diamond mine

GEORGETOWN, June 23 (Reuters) - Unknown assailants shot up to eight people and burned the bodies at a remote diamond mining camp in Guyana, the prime minister said on Monday.

Guyana, an English-speaking South American country, has struggled to contain violence by criminal gangs that sometimes take refuge in the mineral-rich eastern jungles popular with informal miners seeking gold and diamonds.

"It's almost like a cremation," Prime Minister Samuel Hinds told Reuters, adding it was not yet clear when the victims were killed. Initial forensic checks of the skeletal remains indicate as many as eight people died in the camp, he said.

The government said it had learned of the destruction of the small diamond camp on Saturday and police were investigating the killings.

This month, police and soldiers killed several members of a gang led by Rondell Rawlins, Guyana's most wanted criminal, about 6 miles (10 km) south of the camp.

Rawlins and his gang are wanted for the killing in separate attacks of at least 23 people, including sleeping women and children in a village and small town along the country's Atlantic coast earlier this year.

(Reporting by Sharief Khan, Writing by Brian Ellsworth, Editing by Saul Hudson and Sandra Maler)