U.N. Extends Help for South Sudan The United Nations Security Council voted unanimously on Tuesday to extend its peacekeeping mission in South Sudan, where a nearly year-old civil conflict has killed thousands of civilians, uprooted more than 1.5 million and put more than seven million at risk of hunger and disease. The resolution authorized the nearly 14,000-member United Nations Mission in South Sudan - an independent country since 2011 - through May. The extension came as the prospects for a peace agreement have been threatened repeatedly by cease-fire violations. The resolution expressed "grave alarm about the further deteriorating political, security and humanitarian crisis" in South Sudan, where troops loyal to the president, Salva Kiir, have been fighting rebels aligned with his former vice president, Riek Machar, since December. A version of this article appears in print on November 26, 2014, on page A9 of the New York edition with the headline: U.N. Extends Help for South Sudan.