(Adds revised breakdown of victims, minister's statement) ATHENS, Oct 27 (Reuters) - Eight Afghan illegal immigrants, five of them children, drowned in the Aegean Sea on Tuesday while attempting to reach Greece from Turkey, officials said. "A total of 19 people fell in the water when their boat crashed on rocks at the island of Lesvos," a Greek coastguard official told Reuters. Eight corpses of dead women and minors were recovered at sea or washed up on the shore, the official added. Strong winds were blowing in the area. Dozens of illegal immigrants have lost their lives trying to cross into Greece from Turkey in recent years. The two nations' land-and-sea border is a key entry point for illegal immigration into the European Union. About 14,000 migrants arrived by boat in Greece in the first half of 2009, an increase of nearly 50 percent from last year, according to EU border agency Frontex, with Lesvos and the nearby island of Samos in the Aegean Sea bearing the brunt. The EU has long tried in vain to convince Turkey, which aspires to become a member nation, to do more to control an increasing flow of illegal immigrants from its western coast towards Greece. Civil Protection Minister Mihalis Chrysohoidis said Greece will press other EU states at a summit of the bloc's leaders on Thursday to do more to help handle illegal migrants trying to reach the wealthy bloc. "Europe must understand that a perpetual humanitarian crisis unfolds at its borders, for which it shares responsibility," he said in a statement. (Reporting by Harry Papachristou; Editing by Ingrid Melander and Michael Roddy)
A villager demolishes the ceiling of his house as he moves to make way for south-north water diversion project at the area of Danjiangkou Reservior in Danjiangkou, Hubei province, October 24, ...
