Other news outlets said Bae Hyun-jin was struck in the head with an object by an unidentified assailant on the street in Seoul and she was transported to the hospital bleeding.

No further details of the incident were available.

The leader of the country's opposition Democratic Party Lee Jae-myung was stabbed with a knife in the neck earlier in January and was hospitalised requiring surgery to repair a lacerated blood vessel. Lee left hospital eight days later.

(Reporting by Jack Kim; Editing by Christopher Cushing)