Canada is reeling from one of the deadliest school shootings in the country’s recent history following a mass shooting at a high school in the Canadian province of British Columbia that left at least eight people and the suspected shooter dead.

Officials with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police stated during an update on Wednesday that the suspected shooter in the attack, which took place the previous day, was an 18-year-old woman named Jesse Van Rootselaar with a record of mental health issues.

“We have a history of police attendance at the family residence. Some of those calls are related to mental health issues,” Deputy Commissioner Dwayne McDonald, commander of the RCMP in British Columbia, told the press.

Police stated that Rootselaar was born as a biological male and transitioned to a female, but noted that they have not identified a motive for the attack. The suspected attacker took her own life after committing the massacre in Tumbler Ridge in the Pacific province of British Columbia.

The RCMP said that the victims include a 39-year-old female educator, three 12-year-old female students, and two male students between the ages of 12 and 13. Two additional victims, identified as the suspect’s 39-year-old mother and an 11-year-old brother, were found at their family home.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney expressed his condolences in emotional remarks earlier in the day, noting that flags will fly at half-mast at all government buildings for seven days.

“‘We will get through this. We will learn from this,” Prime Minister Mark Carney told reporters.

“But right now, it’s a time to come together, as Canadians always do in these situations, these terrible situations, to support each other, to mourn together and to grow together.”

Carney has cancelled a planned trip to the Munich Security Conference in Germany to remain in the country and said that Canada’s federal public safety minister is being sent to the scene of the shooting.

The RCMP said in a statement on Tuesday that six people were found dead in the secondary school in the small town of Tumbler Ridge, while another person died on the way to the hospital.

Two other people were found dead at a home that police believe is connected to the shooting at Tumbler Ridge Secondary School.

Two people were “airlifted to hospital with serious or life‑threatening injuries”, and some 25 others were “being assessed and triaged at the local medical centre for non‑life‑threatening injuries”, the RCMP added.

The RCMP said on Wednesday that the two airlifted victims are in critical but stable condition.

All remaining students and staff were safely evacuated from the school, police said.

Police have not shared details about the weapons used in the attack.

Darian Quist, a grade 12 student at the school, told Canada’s CBC Radio West that he and other students “got tables and barricaded the doors” for more than two hours during the mass shooting.

“The reality of it all is starting to set in,” he said. “I believe I knew somebody, but everything is still very fresh,” he added, describing the attack as “almost surreal”.

Quist said that the school was small with only about 20 students in his year level.

Located in the foothills of the British Columbia Rocky Mountains, more than 1,100km (685 miles) north of Vancouver, the township of Tumbler Ridge has a population of fewer than 3,000 people.

The RCMP said officers were searching other homes and properties in the community to see if there were additional sites connected to the incident.

“We are not in a place now to be able to understand why and what may have motivated this tragedy,” said the RCMP Superintendent Ken Floyd.

“This was a rapidly evolving and dynamic situation, and the swift cooperation from the school, first responders and community played a critical role in our response,” Floyd said.

‘Unimaginable tragedy’

Tumbler Ridge Mayor Darryl Krakowka said he “broke down” when he learning how many had died. “It’s devastating,” he said.

“I have lived here for 18 years,” he said of the community of 2,700, which he called a “big family”. “I probably know every one of the victims.”

David Eby, the British Columbia premier, described the attack as an “unimaginable tragedy” and said the government would “ensure every possible support for community members in the coming days”.

“Our hearts are in Tumbler Ridge tonight with the families of those who have lost loved ones,” Eby said.

Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney was reported to have suspended his departure for a security conference in Munich, Germany, to deal with the tragedy at home.

“I join Canadians in grieving with those whose lives have been changed irreversibly today, and in gratitude for the courage and selflessness of the first responders who risked their lives to protect their fellow citizens,” Carney wrote in a post on social media.

Conservative opposition leader Pierre Poilievre said on social media he was “devastated to hear of the many innocent people murdered and injured”.

Canada has stricter gun ownership laws than its neighbour, the United States, but a string of mass shootings in recent years has prompted calls for tougher gun-control measures.

Former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau introduced gun-control measures in 2022, including a “freeze” on the buying and selling of handguns in the country.

In April 2020, a 51-year-old man disguised in a police uniform and driving a fake police car shot and killed 22 people in a 13-hour rampage in the Atlantic province of Nova Scotia, before police killed him.

The country’s worst school shooting occurred in December 1989, when a gunman killed 14 female students and wounded 13 at the Ecole Polytechnique in Montreal, Quebec, before killing himself.