Dozens of people have demonstrated outside a U-S military base on the outskirts of Seoul. They were protesting the deaths of two South Korean teenage girls struck by a U-S armored vehicle.

The protesters gathered outside the headquarters of the 2nd Infantry Division in Eujongbu 20 kilometers north of Seoul. They demanded an apology from the U-S military and trial in a South Korean court of the two soldiers who were in the vehicle.

The U-S division headquarters said they have no plans to court-martial them. It said that a joint investigation with South Korean police concluded the deaths were an "accident."

The incident took place last Thursday when an armored bridge carrier on a training operation hit two 14-year-old girls in Yangju, near the border with North Korea.

The father of one of the victims said the driver had enough time to avoid the girls but didn't, because he didn't want to crash into the oncoming military vehicles.

South Korea has no jurisdiction over U-S soldiers involved in accidents while on duty under the Status of Forces Agreement, which governs the legal status of 37 thousand U-S soldiers stationed in South Korea.