US Says Cannot Corroborate Nigerian Claim It Has Located Girls

Nigerian teenager Deborah Peters, the sole survivor of a Boko Haram attack on her family in 2011, holds up a sign referring to the kidnapped Chibok secondary schoolgirls, while speaking to reporters on Capitol Hill in Washington on Wednesday. Peters was on Capitol Hill to attend a hearing by the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Boko Haram: The Growing Threat to Schoolgirls, Nigeria, and Beyond. Peters says she knows at least one of the kidnapped girls. Reuters/Kevin Lamarque

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States said on Tuesday it did not have independent information to confirm Nigeria's claim to know the whereabouts of more than 200 kidnapped girls and questioned the wisdom of making public such information.

"We don't have independent information from the United States to support these reports you referenced," U.S. State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said when asked about Nigerian Chief of Defense Staff Air Marshal Alex Badeh's statement that the military knew where the abducted girls were.

"We, as a matter of policy and for the girls' safety and wellbeing, would not discuss publicly this sort of information regardless."

Nigeria