Shelling resumes near Libyan rebel stronghold of Zintan

Zintan, Libya (CNN) — Forces loyal to Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi resumed shelling Monday near the rebel stronghold of Zintan, with about a dozen heavy explosions heard east of the city.

The town is on the front lines near Libya’s border with Tunisia, from which a narrow finger of land controlled by rebels has become a vital supply route for the opposition. Forces there have been under steady shelling by Gadhafi’s forces.

A NATO airstrike hit a Libyan army position outside the rebel town of Jadu in the western mountains, rebels in Zintan told CNN Monday.

The attack took place around noon (6 a.m. ET) shortly after the Gadhafi forces at that position had launched Grad rockets into the rebel-held town, rebels said.

NATO reported Monday that, since its operation began on March 31, it has flown 7,870 sorties, including 3,025 strike sorties, which are intended to identify and engage targets, but do not necessarily deploy munitions.

On Sunday, a command-and-control center was hit near Tripoli and a missile-support facility was struck near Al Khums, NATO said in a release. Near Sirte, an ammunition-storage facility was struck and, near Brega, a command-and-control facility was targeted, it said.

Nearly 600 migrants and wounded civilians were en route Monday aboard a boat from the embattled city of Misrata to the rebel stronghold in Benghazi, said the International Organization for Migration, which chartered the vessel.

The boat, which was to arrive Monday afternoon, marks the seventh such mission carried out by the group since mid-April.

The boat’s passengers included nearly 400 people from Niger as well as migrants from Nigeria, Chad, Sudan, Pakistan, Egypt, Bangladesh, Tunisia and seven Palestinians.

The boat had arrived Saturday in Misrata carrying 280 tons of food aid and a field hospital.

The developments came as the International Committee of the Red Cross appealed to donors for an additional $53 million “to help the organization meet the urgent needs of people affected by the fighting in Libya.”

“As long as the conflict in Libya continues, the outlook for the coming months is dire, and living conditions may further deteriorate for a large percentage of the population,” said Boris Michel, ICRC head of operations for North and West Africa.

The Council of the European Union reiterated its call Monday for the protection of civilians and for a ceasefire and identifying Gadhafi as “a threat to the Libyan people.”

The European Union’s foreign policy chief was expected Monday to detail meetings with Libya’s rebel leaders a day after opening an office in the rebel stronghold of Benghazi.

Catherine Ashton, the foreign policy chief, was to brief the EU’s foreign ministers about weekend meetings where she pledged support from the 27-nation union to the chairman of Libya’s Transitional National Council.

“I am here today to explain and be clear about the depth and breadth of our support in the European Union for the people of Libya,” Ashton said in a statement Sunday by the EU shortly after her meeting with Mustafa Abdul Jalil, the transitional council chairman.

During the meeting, Ashton said she and Jalil discussed security reform, border management, the economy and civil society.

Arrest warrants have been issued by the International Criminal Court for Gadhafi and two relatives, linking them to “widespread and systematic” attacks on civilians as they struggle to retain power in Libya.

The court’s chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo has said that the court in The Hague will investigate allegations of institutionalized rape in the war-torn country.

A Libyan government official told CNN that Gadhafi’s government welcomes the court’s probe but said that prosecutors “have not been to Libya to do an investigation.”

Siham Sergewa, a Libyan psychologist, has been collecting reports of women reportedly raped and beaten by Gadhafi’s forces that she says she is sharing with the criminal court.

Sergewa told CNN’s Sara Sidner that she began collecting the reports after receiving a call from the mother of a rape victim in Ajdabiya, a town in eastern Libya that was the scene of some of the earliest fighting between rebels and government forces.

The woman told Sergewa that she had been abducted by three or four men and taken to the desert where she was raped.

Since then, Sergewa told CNN she has collected surveys from more than 270 women at refugee camps along Libya’s borders with Egypt and Tunisia who allege they were assaulted by Gadhafi forces.

CNN’s Amir Ahmed and Nic Robertson contributed to this report.