PARIS (AP) — A 10-year-old child and two women died Monday on the treacherous migration route across the English Channel from France, apparently trampled to death on a boat packed with more than 100 people, French authorities said.
The so-called “taxi boat" ran into difficulty off the northern French coast, with its passengers asking for help, authorities said. Such inflatable boats attempt the dangerous crossing after picking up people from the beaches of northern France, where they wade into the sea to clamber aboard.
A French maritime rescue boat took 105 people aboard, the maritime prefecture said in a statement. The child and the two women were declared dead by an intensive care team that was helicoptered aboard, it said.
The women were believed to be in their 30s, the regional government said in a separate statement.
“According to the initial findings of the investigation, it appears the deaths were caused by a stampede. The precise circumstances of the tragedy will, however, have to be established by the judicial investigation,” led by a prosecutor in the northern French port of Boulogne, the statement said.
Nine other people required medical treatment, it said.
The regional government says it has counted 20 deaths of would-be migrants so far this year -- mostly from drownings and other causes during attempted crossings of the Channel but also including others killed in traffic accidents. That compares to 21 killed during the same period last year.
In April, the French and U.K. governments signed a new multimillion-euro deal aimed at reducing the number of migrants crossing the Channel in small boats, with increased police patrols and enhanced surveillance in northern France.
FILE - A group of migrants try to cross the channel from France to Britain on a dinghy boat, in Hardelot, northern France, Sept. 23, 2026. (AP Photo/Jean-Francois Badias, File)
FILE - A group of migrants try to cross the channel from France to Britain on a dinghy boat, in Hardelot, northern France, Wednesday, Sept. 23, 2026. (AP Photo/Jean-Francois Badias, File)
FILE - A group of migrants try to cross the channel from France to Britain on a dinghy boat, in Hardelot, northern France, Sept. 23, 2026. (AP Photo/Jean-Francois Badias, File)
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia’s round-the-clock bombardment of targets in Ukraine killed at least seven people and wounded more than 80 others, officials said Monday.
Moscow’s forces pounded apartment buildings, offices, gas stations, data centers and a building of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine in downtown Kyiv, among other targets.
The ceaseless Russian drone attacks on cities and towns aim to wear down Ukraine’s resistance and cripple the Ukrainian economy.
The attacks followed a week of diplomatic efforts at the United Nations to get traction for negotiations on ending Moscow’s invasion that began 4½ years ago.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov indicated Monday that the chances of making speedy headway on forging a peace settlement were bleak after recent Ukrainian attacks, including during recent parliamentary elections in Russia.
“Ukraine will have to pay a price for the actions that have taken place in recent months,” Peskov told reporters. “That is happening right now.”
Russian drone attacks on the Kyiv region killed four people and wounded eight, officials said.
A woman was killed in a Russian strike on Kyiv’s Shevchenkivskyi district on Monday afternoon, the Kyiv city military administration said. The strike hit the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, the latest cultural landmark in the capital to be damaged.
Some staff escaped the burning building by climbing from windows down firefighters' ladders.
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said the Russians were conducting a campaign of “pure terror” on the civilian population.
“The terror goes on,” he told reporters at the site of the academy strike. “For more than a week Russia has kept attacking Kyiv, disrupting normal life in the city and destroying buildings.”
Russian forces also hit a pharmaceutical company and gas stations in Kyiv.
One drone struck an office center in central Dnipro during working hours Monday, killing three people and wounding at least 18, local authorities said.
A Russian strike on a nine-story apartment building in the northeastern city of Kharkiv wounded 43 people, including 11 children, Mayor Ihor Terekhov said.
Thirty civilians were injured in Russian strikes on Zaporizhzhia, officials said, while another Russian attack damaged a multistory apartment building in Odesa, wounding three people, according to Oleh Kiper, head of the Odesa regional military administration.
Four people, including two teenage girls, were hurt when a Russian drone struck a residential area in northern Ukraine’s Chernihiv region on Sunday evening, said Viacheslav Chaus, head of the regional military administration.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said its forces struck two data centers in Kyiv, as well as gas stations in the Ukrainian capital. A distribution hub belonging to the Nova Poshta postal service was struck in the southern city of Odesa, it said.
The Russian military also hit a cargo ship in the Black Sea and another one in the Ukrainian port of Chornomorsk, the ministry said. The strikes aim to curb Ukraine’s grain exports, though they may also create food shortages in countries that rely on Ukrainian imports.
The Russian aerial attacks regularly hit civilian areas. Moscow claims it targets only military-related sites.
Battlefield positions have changed little since last year, in part because swarms of drones severely restrict troop movements, but Kyiv’s forces launched a recent offensive, code-named Operation Vivaldi, on part of the 1,250-kilometer (800-mile) front line.
Ukraine’s Third Army Corps said Monday it had recaptured another 51 square kilometers (20 square miles) from the Russians, bringing the total to 176 square kilometers (68 square miles) since the offensive began several months ago.
The corps said that in order to break through Russian defenses, it converted Soviet-era BTR-60 armored personnel carriers into kamikaze vehicles that blew up the strongest Russian fortifications. The operation has also used ground robots to attack Russian positions.
The claimed breakthroughs came in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine, which the bigger Russian army has been trying in vain to conquer.
Russian officials made no immediate comment on the Ukrainian claim.
Russia’s Defense Ministry, meanwhile, said Russian troops captured the villages of Novovodiane in the Donetsk region and Ulanove in the northern Sumy region.
It was not possible to independently verify the claims.
Zelenskyy said long-range strikes on Russian soil hit two defense plants in the Tula and Voronezh regions and oil facilities in the Krasnodar region, all in southern and western Russia.
Ukraine's long-range drones have repeatedly targeted Russian fuel depots and industrial plants that are a mainstay of Moscow’s economy and war effort.
Ukrainian drone attacks overnight started fires at three infrastructure facilities in Russia’s Krasnodar region, local emergency officials said Monday, without identifying the locations.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said air defenses downed 254 Ukrainian drones overnight.
Hatton reported from Lisbon, Portugal.
Follow the AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
Rescue workers put out a fire at the National Academy of Sciences building damaged after a Russian drone strike in the center of Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, Sept. 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Dan Bashakov)
A man evacuates a burning building using a rescue ladder from the National Academy of Sciences building damaged after a Russian drone strike in the center of Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, Sept. 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Dan Bashakov)
Rescue workers put out a fire at the National Academy of Sciences building damaged after a Russian drone strike in the center of Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, Sept. 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Dan Bashakov)
Rescue workers put out a fire at the National Academy of Sciences building damaged after a Russian drone strike in the center of Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, Sept. 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Dan Bashakov)
Paramedics evacuate an injured woman into an ambulance in front of the National Academy of Sciences building damaged after a Russian drone strike in the center of Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, Sept. 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Dan Bashakov)
Rescue workers put out a fire at the National Academy of Sciences building damaged after a Russian drone strike in the center of Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, Sept. 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Dan Bashakov)
A man walks at the central market damaged in a Russian strike on Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, on Saturday, Sept.26, 2026. (AP Photo/Kateryna Klochko)
