The Latest: MSF “extremely worried” by new fighting in Syria

BEIRUT (AP) — The Latest on the conflict in Syria as a new round of peace talks begins in Geneva (all times local):

6:15 p.m.

An international medical relief organization says it is “extremely worried” about the security of people fleeing fighting in northern Syria and about their access to health care.

Medicins Sans Frontieres, also known as MSF or Doctors Without Borders, says it knows of just five operating hospitals in the Azaz district, where Syrians who have already been displaced by conflict are now fleeing renewed fighting between Syrian rebels and the Islamic State group.

Muskilda Zancada, head of the MSF mission in Syria, says the situation on the ground “remains very unpredictable.”

The New York-based Human Rights Watch said Thursday that an Islamic State advance in the area sent around 30,000 displaced persons fleeing from their camps. The group said some headed to the Turkish border but were refused entry.

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1 p.m.

Syrian state media says a government delegation has arrived to join the new round of U.N.-mediated peace talks with an umbrella opposition group that began this week in Geneva.

The arrival of the Damascus team, led by Syria’s U.N. Ambassador Bashar Jaafari, comes amid an escalation in northern Aleppo province that has left 34 dead on both sides. The renewed fighting has undermined the fragility of the cease-fire that has largely held elsewhere in Syria.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says that of those killed in the past 24 hours in the clashes, 14 were pro-government fighters and 20 were militants.

U.N. Special Envoy Steffan De Mistura has said he hopes this round will have substantive talks on a peace process to resolve the country’s five-year civil war.