Madonna takes her adopted children to see their Malawi birthplace

Madonna pictured carrying her Malawian adopted son David Banda in 2007 (AP)

Madonna is visiting Malawi with the two children she adopted from the impoverished African country.

The singer, said to be the single largest international philanthropic donor to Malawi, arrived with David Banda, adopted in 2006 and Mercy James, in 2009.

Madonna visited the schools which she helped to fund and held talks with President Joyce Banda, in a bid to defuse a row over the star’s charitable work.

Madonna’s Raising Malawi charity claimed to have built 10 schools but Education minister Eunice Kazembe had said they were classroom blocks, and not schools.

Trevor Nielson, Madonna’s philanthropy manager, said: “The schools are built to the exact national standards of Malawi, like every other Malawian school. The bottom line is that 3,800 children are going to school now who were not going to school before.”

Madonna also visited one of the orphanages she sponsors in the capital, Lilongwe. She had promised to bring her adopted children back to the African country, which is home to nearly a million children orphaned by AIDS, “every two to three years.”