Whereas famine is defined as a drastic, wide-ranging food shortage in which one in five households have an extreme lack of food and other basic needs, where starvation, death and destitution are evident despite humanitarian assistance; Whereas famine is largely caused by conflict in countries such as South Sudan, Nigeria, and Somalia, where the interruption of the planting-harvesting cycle has prevented internal production of food; Whereas there are 1,800,000 refugees from the conflict in South Sudan in neighboring countries and 2,000,000 internally displaced persons in that country, and rapidly growing numbers of South Sudanese refugees are placing a toll on Uganda and other countries hosting them as donor contributions have not kept pace and food rations have been cut at times by 50 percent; Whereas South Sudan is experiencing heightened levels of food insecurity with as high as 27 percent of the population in some areas facing famine, and the United Nations estimates that at least 4,900,000 people in South Sudan, more than 40 percent of the population, are in urgent need of food; Whereas, according to the Council on Foreign Relations, more than 30,000 lives have been lost in violence related to Nigeria’s Boko Haram insurgency; Whereas 14,000,000 people in northeast Nigeria are in urgent need of humanitarian assistance, including more than 8,000,000 children, and almost 6,000,000 people are also facing severe food insecurity, and almost 9,000,000 Nigerians are projected to suffer from food insecurity by August 2017, including more than 3,000,000 people living in the northeast state of Borno, where Boko Haram is active; Whereas increasing attacks by Fulani militia on farmers in Nigeria’s Middle Belt threaten to further exacerbate hunger in the region