An aspiring neurosurgeon and a campus Republican died in the Brown campus shooting

An aspiring neurosurgeon and a student leader of Brown University's campus Republicans were in a study group preparing for an economics final, with the end of the semester in sight.

But the lives of MukhammadAziz Umurzokov and Ella Cook were cut short Saturday when a gunman opened fire inside a classroom in the engineering building. Nine others were wounded before the gunman fled. Investigators were still searching for him Monday.

As questions swirled about the gunman's motives and how he managed to walk away after the attack, relatives and friends of Umurzokov, an 18-year-old freshman from Brandermill, Virginia, and Cook, a 19-year-old sophomore from a suburb of Birmingham, Alabama, tried to make sense of the loss.

Umurzokov decided at a young age that he wanted to go into medicine.

He made up his mind after suffering a neurological condition that required him to undergo surgery as a child and having to wear a back brace due to scoliosis. With a double-major in biochemistry and neuroscience, he hoped to go to medical school.

“He had so many hardships in his life, and he got into this amazing school and tried so hard to follow through with the promise he made when was 7 years old,” his sister, Samira Umurzokova, told The Associated Press by phone Monday.

Umurzokov was helping a friend at an economics final review session when someone walked into the classroom and began shooting.

“It’s just crazy unfair that all of that was taken from him in a second because of someone,” Umurzokova said.

He took it upon himself to help students who just immigrated to the United States and weren’t fully acclimated to the culture and language, said Umurzokova, whose family came to the country from Uzbekistan when she, her brother and sister were very young.

She said he would be using his phone at the dinner table and when his parents told him to put it away, he would say, ”‘No, I’m helping my friend with calculus homework.’”

When he wasn’t busy with schoolwork, he would play video games with friends and hang out at a book store with family. He had plans to take his sisters to see the movie “Avatar: Fire and Ash,” which comes out Friday.

“He was a thoughtful person,” Umurzokova said. “He always tried to include everyone in everything. and just always thought of other people before he thought of himself.”

Cook, of Mountain Brook, Alabama, was beloved in her Birmingham church and was vice president of the Brown College Republicans.

When announcing her death Sunday to the Cathedral Church of the Advent congregation, the Rev. R. Craig Smalley described her as “an incredible grounded, faithful, bright light” who encouraged and “lifted up those around her."

“Light shines in the darkness,” he told the congregation, urging members to love and pray for her parents.

Members of the Brown College Republicans were “devastated,” the club's president, Martin Bertao, said in a post on X.

“Ella was known for her bold, brave, and kind heart as she served her chapter and her fellow classmates,” Bertao said.

Joe Powers, the chairman of the Rhode Island Republican Party, said in a statement that Cook “embodied the very best of the next generation of conservative voices."

Even the White House acknowledged the death, with press secretary Karoline Leavitt writing in a message posted on X, “There are no words. Thinking of her family and friends, especially her parents. God please bless them.”

Relatives of Cook didn’t immediately respond to emails and phone messages seeking comment.

Only one of the nine people wounded had been released as of Sunday, Brown President Christina Paxson said. One was in critical condition and the other seven were in critical but stable condition.

Durham Academy, a private K-12 school in Durham, North Carolina, confirmed that a recent graduate, Kendall Turner, was critically wounded. The school said her parents were with her.

“Our school community is rallying around Kendall, her classmates, and her loved ones, and we will continue to offer our full support in the days ahead,” the school said in a statement.

Another wounded student, 18-year-old freshman Spencer Yang of New York City, told the New York Times and the Brown Daily Herald from a hospital bed that there was a mad scramble after the gunman entered the room where he and the other students were studying for finals. Many students ran toward the front of the room, but Yang said he wound up on the ground between some seats and was shot in the leg.

Yang, who expects to be discharged in the coming days, said he tried to keep some of the more seriously wounded students conscious until police arrived.

A member of the FBI Evidence Response Team searches for evidence near an ivy-covered wall following the shooting at Brown University, Monday, Dec. 15, 2025, in Providence, R.I. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)

Members of the FBI Evidence Response Team search for evidence near the campus of Brown University, Monday, Dec. 15, 2025, in Providence, R.I. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)

People light candles at the beginning of a vigil, Sunday, Dec. 14, 2025, in Providence, R.I., for those injured or killed during the Saturday shooting on the campus of Brown University. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)

The United States flag flies at half-staff as a sign of mourning for the victim's of Saturday's shooting, on the campus of Brown University, Monday, Dec. 15, 2025, in Providence, R.I. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)

People hold candles during a vigil, Sunday, Dec. 14, 2025, in Providence, R.I., for the victims of Saturday's shooting on the campus of Brown University. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran fired more missiles at Israel and Gulf Arab states Thursday, demonstrating Tehran’s continued ability to attack even as U.S. President Donald Trump claimed the threat from the country was nearly eliminated and predicted the war would end soon.

Iran’s strikes on its neighbors along with its chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz have disrupted the world’s energy supplies with effects far beyond the Middle East. That has proved to be Iran’s greatest strategic advantage in the war. Britain planned to hold a call with nearly three dozen countries about how to reopen the strait, through which 20% of all traded oil passes in peacetime, once the fighting is over.

Trump has insisted the strait, which was open to traffic before the U.S. and Israel launched their war on Iran, can be taken by force — but said it is not up to the U.S. to do that. In his address to the American people Wednesday night, he encouraged countries that depend on oil passing through Hormuz to “build some delayed courage” and go “take it.”

Iran responded defiantly to Trump’s speech, in which the American president claimed U.S. military action had been so decisive that “one of the most powerful countries” is “really no longer a threat.”

A spokesman for Iran’s military insisted Thursday that Tehran maintains hidden stockpiles of arms, munitions and production facilities. “The centers you think you have targeted are insignificant, and our strategic military productions take place in locations of which you have no knowledge and will never reach,” Lt. Col. Ebrahim Zolfaghari claimed.

Just before Trump began his address — in which he said U.S. “core strategic objectives are nearing completion” — explosions were heard in Dubai as air defenses worked to intercept an Iranian missile barrage.

Less than a half-hour after the president was done, Israel said its military was also working to intercept incoming missiles. Sirens sounded in Bahrain, home to the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet, immediately after the speech.

Attacks continued across Iran on Thursday, with strikes reported in multiple cities.

More than 1,900 people have been killed in Iran during the war, while 19 have been reported dead in Israel. More than two dozen people have died in Gulf states and the occupied West Bank, while 13 U.S. service members have been killed.

More than 1,200 people have been killed and more than 1 million displaced in Lebanon, home to Iran-backed Hezbollah militants who are fighting Israel, which has launched a ground invasion. Ten Israeli soldiers have also died there.

Iranian attacks on some two dozen commercial ships, and the threat of more, have halted nearly all traffic in the waterway that connects the Persian Gulf to the open ocean.

The 35 countries speaking Thursday, including all G7 industrialized democracies except the U.S., as well as the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, signed a declaration last month demanding Iran stop blocking the strait. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the countries will discuss “viable diplomatic and political measures” to resume shipping.

But no country appears willing to try to open the strait by force while the war is raging. There is a concern that Iran might limit traffic through the strait even after U.S. and Israeli attacks on it cease.

The idea of an international effort has echoes of the “coalition of the willing,” led by the U.K. and France, that was assembled to underpin Ukraine’s security in the event of a ceasefire in that war. The coalition is, in part, an attempt to demonstrate to Washington that Europe is doing more for its own security in the face of frequent criticism from Trump.

The U.S. has presented Iran with a 15-point plan for a ceasefire, but Trump didn’t say anything in his speech about the diplomatic efforts or bring up his April 6 deadline for Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz or face severe retaliation.

The conflict is driving up prices for oil and natural gas, roiling stock markets, pushing up the cost of gasoline and threatening to make a range of goods, including food, more expensive.

On Thursday, Brent crude, the international standard, rose again and was at $108 in spot trading, up about 50% from Feb. 28 when Israel and the U.S. started the war.

Though the oil and gas that typically transits the strait is primarily sold to Asian nations, Japan and South Korea were the only two countries from the region joining Thursday's call about the strait. The supply of jet fuel has also been interrupted by the conflict, with consequences for travel worldwide.

Weissert reported from Washington and Rising from Bangkok.

Mourners gather during a funeral procession for Alireza Tangsiri, head of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy, and others killed in Israeli strikes in late March, in Tehran, Iran, Wednesday, April 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

A firefighter extinguishes a car at the site of Israeli airstrikes, in Beirut, Lebanon, Wednesday, April 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

People take cover in a bomb shelter as air raid sirens warn of incoming Iranian missile strikes in Bnei Brak, Israel, Wednesday, April 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)

Members from the Popular Mobilization Forces attend a funeral of fighters who were killed in a U.S. airstrike, in Tal Afar, Nineveh province, north of Baghdad, Iraq, Thursday, April 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban)

Members from the Popular Mobilization Forces attend a funeral of fighters who were killed in a U.S. airstrike, in Tal Afar, Nineveh province, north of Baghdad, Iraq, Thursday, April 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban)

The Indian flagged LPG carrier Jag Vasant transporting liquefied petroleum gas, is seen at the Mumbai Port in Mumbai, India, after it arrived clearing the Strait of Hormuz, Wednesday, April 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Rafiq Maqbool)

President Donald Trump speaks about the Iran war from the Cross Hall of the White House on Wednesday, April 1, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, Pool)

President Donald Trump walks from the Blue Room to speak about the Iran war from the Cross Hall of the White House on Wednesday, April 1, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, Pool)

President Donald Trump speaks about the Iran war from the Cross Hall of the White House on Wednesday, April 1, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, Pool)

President Donald Trump speaks about the Iran war from the Cross Hall of the White House on Wednesday, April 1, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, Pool)