Whereas the Comprehensive Peace Agreement signed on January 9, 2005, provided the framework for a referendum to determine the status of southern Sudan in 2011, in which approximately 99 percent of voters chose independence from Sudan; Whereas since the onset of the civil war in the Republic of South Sudan, in December 2013, more than 50,000 South Sudanese citizens have been killed and 1,930,000 have been internally displaced, including roughly 230,000 who have sought refuge at civilian protection sites established by the United Nations Mission in the Republic of South Sudan (UNMISS); Whereas, in addition, 82 aid workers have been killed and more than 1,800,000 refugees from South Sudan have fled to neighboring countries to seek asylum; Whereas throughout the course of the civil war, both government and opposition forces have been implicated in the recruitment of more than 17,000 child soldiers, and have been found culpable in other egregious human rights violations, including ethnically targeted rape and killing; Whereas, on February 20, 2017, famine was officially declared in parts of South Sudan and the United States Agency for International Development estimates that by the peak lean season in July 2017, approximately 5,500,000 people—nearly half the population—will be in Crisis (IPC 3) or higher levels of acute food insecurity; Whereas despite the Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in the Republic of South Sudan signed on August 17, 2015, which came into effect on August 26, 2015, violent clashes employing tanks, helicopter gunships, and heavy weaponry have continued throughout the country that routinely and indiscriminately affect civilian neighborhoods and United Nations compounds