Sudan's government has admitted that an army helicopter mistakenly fired on civilians last week, killing 17 while they waited in line to receive food at a United Nations aid station.

The government says it deeply regrets, what it called, "this appalling event", but called it an honest mistake. A senior government official, Ghazi Salah Eddin Atabani, said the helicopter meant to target rebels in the area.

The U.S.-based Human Rights Watch said Friday the February 20 army attack in southern Sudan was not a mistake. It is urging an independent investigation into the killings.

Sudan's civil war and war-caused famine have claimed more than two million lives since 1983. The government has been fighting southern rebels for the past 19 years.

The Sudanese government has accused the rebels of stepping up the fighting, saying that could only heighten the risk of more civilian deaths and injuries.

It also said that as the U.S. forces in Afghanistan know well, civilians can be unintended victims during a conflict.

The United States, calling last week's attack "senseless and brutal," suspended its peacemaking efforts in Sudan following the air raid in Bieth, about 1,000 kilometers south of Khartoum.

Sudan's civil war pits the Muslim-dominated government in the north with the mostly Christian and animist south. The war and conflict-caused famine have claimed the lives of more than two million people since 1983.

Some information for this report provided by AP and AFP.

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