GOMA, Congo — More than 40 rebels suspected of atrocities during Rwanda’s 1994 genocide were killed in an overnight air raid, a military spokesman said Friday.

The raids targeted one of the positions of the rebel Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda, or FDLR, said Oliver Hamuli, the spokesman for the military operation.

The group is made up primarily of ethnic Hutus from Rwanda who fled across the border into Congo following the 1994 slaughter of more than 500,000 mostly ethnic Tutsi civilians.

“The death toll from this attack is more than 40 dead and several hurt — all on the FDLR side,” said Hamuli, the spokesman for a joint Rwanda-Congo military operation aimed at stamping out the remnants of the Hutu militia.

He said the attack took place late Thursday in Kashebere, in the eastern Congo region of Masisi. The FDLR commanders were in the midst of a meeting when the air raids began. A few miles (kilometers) away, a second attack took place.

“The death toll there was high as well. The survivors threw the bodies in the river,” Hamuli said.

The echoes of Rwanda’s genocide are still being felt in Congo nearly 15 years later. The presence of the FDLR in Congo’s terraced hills has destabilized the region, giving rise to a counter rebel group, made up of Congolese Tutsis. While that group claimed to be protecting Congo’s Tutsi minority from the Hutu militia, it too is now accused of grave abuses.

Congo has long accused Rwanda of backing the Tutsi militia — known as the CNDP. Rwanda, on the other hand, has accused Congo of aiding the FDLR and the two countries twice went to war over the issue.

But in a recent turn, Congo agreed to join forces with Rwanda in order to finally root out the last of the FDLR. The joint operation began last month. Congo’s President Joseph Kabila, however, gave a news conference to make it known that he expects troops from his former enemy to leave Congolese territory by the end of February.

More than 40 rebels killed in Congo air raid – Los Angeles Times