Over 80 people have died and tens of thousands have been displaced in escalating violence between armed groups as the border city of Cucuta scrambled Wednesday to cope with thousands of civilians fleeing the violence.

The unusually deadly violence delivers a devastating blow to the “total peace” program of the country’s first leftist president, Gustavo Petro.

In just five days, bloodshed has been reported across three Colombian departments -- from the remote Amazon jungle in the south to the mountainous northeastern border with Venezuela, where fighting has displaced almost 20,