Two boys, ages 12 and 15, were shot and critically wounded in Chicago's Canaryville neighborhood Thursday afternoon.

At 3:45 p.m., the boys were in a vacant lot behind the 600 block of West 47th Street, between Union Avenue and Wallace Street, when they got into a fight with an unknown number of people, police said.

At least one of the people fighting the boys fired shots.

The 12-year-old boy was shot in the chest, the 15-year-old boy in the hip. Both were taken to the University of Chicago's Comer Children's Hospital in critical condition, police said.

A barber who works in a building next to the scene of the shooting said he happened to come outside on a break and saw one of the boys lying on the ground.

"He was laid out on the gate. Shots. I thought he fell from the roof because they were doing construction," said the barber, who did not want to be identified. "But the whole time, he got shot on the other end of the alley, and ran all the way down. They chased him down to the back of the house right there."

The barber saw paramedics put that one boy in an ambulance.

"He was burning up. He kept moving," said the barber. "The ATA [ambulance transport attendant], whatever they call them — he was telling him to stop moving."

The shooting happened 15 minutes after dismissal at Tilden High School, about a block away at 4747 S. Union Ave. A teacher at the high school, Shawanda Wimbley said students were moving around and dispersing at the time. 

Wimbley said she heard four shots upon exiting the school building.

"School just started two weeks ago, and we're already having issues like this," Wimbley said. "I'm very concerned for our students."

Ald. Ray Lopez (15th) issued a statement on X: "Today the 15th Ward experienced a shooting near Tilden High School. If having national guardsmen on hand to increase uniform presence keeps our youth from getting shot, what's the damn problem? Neither [Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker] nor [Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson] are providing real solutions for my constituents."

No one was in custody late Thursday. Wentworth Area detectives are investigating.