South Korean authorities have detained a man after two police officers were stabbed near the presidential office in Seoul.
The 77-year-old man was passing by the Ministry of National Defense when he pulled out a knife and stabbed the two officers, Yonhap News Agency reported on Tuesday.
The suspect, identified by his surname Park, attacked the officers after being asked to move past the building quickly, Yonhap said.
One of the officers was stabbed in the abdomen and the other in the left arm, according to Yonhap.
Both officers were taken to hospital, but it was not immediately clear how seriously they had been injured.
The man was arrested at the scene by police guarding the ministry building.
The ministry has housed South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol’s compound since he moved the presidential office to its current location after taking office in May last year.
Yoon said the move would return the historic Blue House to the public and make South Korea’s “imperial” presidency more accessible. The Blue House, built in the 1930s near the end of the Japanese colonial period, had served as the presidential residence for more than seven decades.
The attacks follow two apparently random mass stabbings earlier this year that raised public anxiety in South Korea, where public acts of violence are rare.
A Gallup Korea poll carried out in August found 52 percent of South Koreans were “very worried” about being targeted in a victim random act of violence.
