Gunman shoots two students

Two students were shot and wounded, one seriously, at Delaware State University in the US on Friday, and the campus was locked down as police searched for a gunman. Classes were cancelled for the day and students were told to stay in their dormitories. The students were shot near the Memorial Hall gymnasium at 1am. Carlos Holmes, a university spokesman, said the female student had serious wounds, the male's were not as serious.

"They could be potentially life-threatening," he said. The male student's wounds were not as serious and he was in a stable condition at a hospital.

The female was taken to Christiana Hospital in Newark, New Jersey, with a traumatic wound to the abdomen, said John Wilson, the deputy chief of Kent County Emergency Services. The man was taken to Kent General Hospital in Dover.

Police hoped to find out more information once the victims were able to talk.

Authorities did not know of a motive for the shootings, which were also being investigated by state police, the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Holmes said.

Non-essential university employees were told not to report to work.

Alex Bishoff, 20, a freshman from Washington DC, said he had heard five gunshots and, from his dormitory window, saw people scattering. He said he immediately thought of the Virginia Tech shootings last April in which a gunman killed 32 people before killing himself.

At the time of the Delaware campus shooting, the area was surrounded by groups of recreational vehicles belonging to NASCAR fans. They are in town for this weekend's races at the Dover Downs Speedway.