Madonna arrived in Malawi on Monday with the young local boy she is adopting, amid rumours she intended to adopt a second child from an orphanage the impoverished Southern African nation.
The pop singer, who sparked controversy last year when she decided to adopt one-year-old David Banda from a local orphanage, landed at Lilongwe’s airport in a private jet, a Reuters witness at the airport said.
Wearing dark glasses and a black outfit, Madonna carried Banda, now about 18 months old, as she walked onto the tarmac. She and her entourage quickly left the airport in a convoy of vehicles.
The singer is expected to visit an orphanage just outside the Malawian capital in connection with her charity work in the country, as well as travel to the Home of Hope orphanage, where Banda lived before Madonna adopted him.
A spokesperson for Madonna says she has no plans to adopt another child despite media reports that the United States-born singer and her British film director husband Guy Ritchie wanted to add a young Malawian girl to their family.
The visit comes some six months after the couple signed interim adoption papers for Banda, who was to stay with Madonna and Ritchie for 18 months before a decision was made by the Malawian government on whether to finalise the adoption.
Malawian officials have said they are monitoring Banda’s progress in Britain, where he has been living with the couple.
Madonna’s adoption of the child grabbed world headlines and caused some rights groups in Malawi to question whether she had used her celebrity status to bypass laws governing the adoption of Malawians by foreigners — an argument denied by her lawyers.
Yohane Banda, the child’s father, also has complained that he did not have access to Madonna singer and was having difficulty getting information about his son.
David Banda was placed in an orphanage shortly after his mother died.
There was no immediate information on whether David Banda would visit his father during Madonna’s visit.
The adoption controversy has helped to spotlight the plight of orphans in Malawi, where more than 900 000 children are orphaned and another 500 000 have lost at least one parent, many of them to the country’s devastating HIV/Aids pandemic. – Reuters