Police in Rhode Island were searching for a suspect late on Saturday after a shooting at Brown University in Providence left two students dead and eight others critically wounded at the Ivy League school, officials said. A ninth person was hurt by bullet fragments, the mayor said.

Streets around campus remained blocked and packed with emergency vehicles hours after the shooting and law enforcement officials heightened security around the city as police continued their manhunt, Reuters reported.

“The individual responsible is still at large,” Mayor Brett Smiley told reporters at a 9:30 p.m. (0230 GMT) press conference. Deputy Police Chief Timothy O’Hara said the suspect had not been identified.

Officials said they are looking for a male dressed in black and were releasing a video of the suspect, who O’Hara said may have been wearing a mask. He said officials had retrieved shell casings from the scene of the shooting, but that police were not prepared to release details.

Officials said the gunman escaped after shooting students in Brown’s Barus & Holley engineering building, where exams were taking place at the time.

“We are a week and a half away from Christmas. And two people died today and another eight are in the hospital,” Smiley said earlier in the evening. “So please pray for those families.”

Brown is on College Hill in Providence, Rhode Island’s state capital. The university has hundreds of buildings, including lecture halls, laboratories and dormitories.

“This is the day one hopes never happens, and it has,” Brown’s president Christina Paxson told reporters, confirming all or nearly all of the victims were students.

As news of the shooting spread, the school told students to shelter in place.

Brown student Chiang-Heng Chien told local TV station WJAR he was working in a lab with three other students when he saw the text about the active shooter situation a block away. They waited under desks for about two hours, he said.

Rhode Island Governor Daniel McKee vowed that the shooter would be brought to justice. “We’re going to make sure that we catch the individual that brought so much suffering to so many people.”

The search for the suspect was hampered in part because downtown Providence was crowded with holiday shoppers and thousands of people attending concerts, local media said. Federal law enforcement and police from surrounding cities and towns were assisting in the search, officials said. According to local news reports, venues across the city were bringing in extra security.

President Donald Trump told reporters at the White House that he had been briefed on the situation, which he called “terrible.”

“All we can do right now is pray for the victims and for those that were very badly hurt.”

Compared to many countries, mass shootings in schools, workplaces, and places of worship are more common in the U.S., which has some of the most permissive gun laws in the developed world. The Gun Violence Archive, which defines mass shootings as any incident in which four or more victims have been shot, has counted 389 of them this year in the U.S., including at least six such shootings at schools.

Last year the U.S. had more than 500 mass shootings, according to the archive.

Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado on Friday promised political change after slipping out of the country in secret to collect the Nobel Peace Prize, as the shock waves intensified from the Trump administration’s seizure of an oil tanker earlier this week.

That escalation came on the heels of a large-scale U.S. military buildup in the southern Caribbean as President Donald Trump campaigns to oust Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro, pushing relations to their most volatile point in years, Reuters reported.

The effects could ripple through the region, with Venezuelan oil exports falling sharply and crisis-stricken Cuba, already straining to power its grid, at risk of losing supply.

The U.S. seizure of the Skipper tanker off Venezuela’s coast on Wednesday marked the first U.S. capture of Venezuelan oil cargo since sanctions were imposed in 2019.

The vessel is now heading to Houston, where it will offload its cargo onto smaller ships, Reuters reported.

The Trump administration does not recognize Maduro, in power since 2013, as Venezuela’s legitimate leader.

Washington has signalled more seizures are planned as part of efforts to choke off sanctioned oil flows, and subsequently imposed new sanctions on three nephews of Maduro’s wife and six tankers linked to them.

The U.S. military presence in the Caribbean has grown as Trump in recent weeks has discussed potential military intervention in Venezuela, based on accusations that the country ships narcotics to the United States. The Venezuelan government has denied the accusations.

So far there have been over 20 U.S. military strikes in the Caribbean and Pacific against suspected drug vessels this year, in which nearly 90 people have been killed, alarming human rights advocates and stirring debate among U.S. lawmakers.

While many Republicans have backed the campaign, Democrats have questioned whether the campaign is illegal and urged more transparency, including the release of a full, unedited video, opens new tab of strikes on a suspected drug-trafficking boat.

MACHADO DEFIES BAN, URGES TRANSITION

Machado defied a decade-long travel ban and a period in hiding to travel to Oslo on Thursday, noting that she would soon bring the Nobel Peace Prize back home to Venezuela.

She said Maduro would leave power “whether there is a negotiated changeover or not,” vowed she is focused on a peaceful transition, and thanked Trump for his “decisive support.”

Machado is aligned with U.S. hardliners who accuse Maduro of ties to criminal networks – claims that U.S. intelligence has reportedly questioned.

When asked at a press conference in Oslo if she believed U.S. intervention was needed in Venezuela, Machado replied, “We are asking the world to help us.”

Venezuela condemned the tanker seizure as “blatant theft” and “international piracy,” saying it would file complaints with international bodies.

At the same time, Venezuelan lawmakers took a step to withdraw the country from the International Criminal Court, which is currently investigating alleged human rights abuses in the South American country.

Adding to the friction, the Venezuelan government announced the suspension of a U.S. migrant repatriation flight on Friday. A U.S. official countered that deportation flights would continue.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has arrived in Turkmenistan’s capital for a two-day visit.

According to TASS, the presidential aircraft of the Rossiya Special Flight Detachment landed near the presidential terminal of Ashgabat International Airport, commonly referred to as the “small bird” for its distinctive design.

During his visit, Putin will attend an international forum titled “Peace and Trust: Unity of Goals for a Sustainable Future” and hold several bilateral meetings.

The Kremlin has confirmed talks with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, while the Iranian Embassy has announced that a meeting with President Masoud Pezeshkian is also planned.

The Ashgabat forum will also be attended by Turkmen President Serdar Berdymukhamedov, along with the presidents of Armenia, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, as well as the prime ministers of Azerbaijan, Hungary, Georgia and Pakistan.