“We are talking 15,000 people arriving in the city in just four days. This is historic for Cucuta, but sadly even for the country,” Cucuta Mayor Jorge Acevedo said.

The rival guerrilla groups violence in the northeast coca-growing region of Cataumbo threatened the “total peace” strategy of President Gustavo Petro.

Petro is a former guerrilla member elected in 2022 as Colombia’s first left-wing president. His “total peace” plan tried simultaneous negotiations with multiple armed groups.

According to Colombia ombudsman office head Iris Marin Ortiz, victims of the violence include “civilians who are accused of collaborating with one group or the other simply because they are family members or people close to them.”

The upsurge in violence is the worst since Colombia’s 2016 peace accords between the government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) rebel group.

According to Ortiz, fighters have gone door-to-door searching for rival faction sympathizers while rights groups said civilians are being targeted by the ELN and 33rd Front rebels.

Elizabeth Dickenson of the International Crisis Group in Colombia said the violence outbreak is bigger than any other since the 2016 deal.

“This is spiraling out of control very quickly,” DIckenson said. “It’s going to be very difficult for Petro to reel the security situation back in, because we have overt, massive conflict in regions that were pretty quiet up until now.”

Cucuta secretary of post-conflict Leandro Ugarte called the civilian displacement crisis caused by the violence “a tsunami of people.”

Petro has declared a state of “economic emergency” and pledged to announce “a state of internal unrest” to help government cope wit hthe armed groups violence upsurge.

According to Colombian government numbers, over a million people have been killed in Colombia’s decades-long armed faction violence while more than 8.8 million have been displaced.