Two South Korean college students, who crossed the U.S. by bicycle to promote awareness of Japan's wartime sexual slavery, held a rally in front of Japan's Embassy in Washington Wednesday to demand Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe apologize and compensate victims.

The two students, Shim Yong-seok and Baek Deok-yeol, both 22, arrived in Washington earlier this week after traveling all the way by bicycle from Los Angeles since June 27. The 4,800-kilometer journey was aimed at calling for Japan to resolve the sexual slavery issue.

"The Abe administration must fully admit Japan's responsibility for the system of sexual slavery," they said, reading a prepared statement. "Officially, legally and genuinely apologize for inflicting such brutal and egregious violence against women and children and stop committing even more crimes by denying and avoiding its responsibility."

They stressed that no human being should suffer from such brutality.

"The only way we can prevent the same crimes from happening again is to educate ourselves and others. Please remember our voice and do your part," they said.

After Washington, they plan to travel to New York, where they plan to hold rallies in front of the Japanese consulate and the U.N. headquarters.

Shim and Baek, who, as part of their mandatory military service duty, served at the police unit guarding South Korea's easternmost islets of Dokdo, which Japan has long laid claims to, said they became interested in the sexual slavery issue after watching an animation film about victims.

Historians estimate that up to 200,000 women, mainly from Korea, which was a Japanese colony from 1910 to 1945, were forced to work in front-line brothels for Japanese soldiers during World War II. But Japan has long attempted to water down the atrocity.

The sexual slavery issue has been the biggest thorn in frayed relations between Japan and South Korea, with Seoul demanding Tokyo take steps to address the grievances of elderly Korean victims and Japan refusing to do so.

Earlier this month, Abe issued a statement commemorating the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II, but failed gain to offer a clear apology of his own for the sexual slavery issue.

"He lost another opportunity to solve the issue by choosing to skirt blame and the responsibility of giving an apology," Lee Jung-sil, president of the Washington Coalition for Comfort Women Issues, said during the rally in front of the Japanese Embassy. (Yonhap)