Madonna seen visiting the Kondanani Children's village, some 20 kilometres from Malawi's commercial capital Blantyre in this October 5, 2006 file photo. Madonna was at the centre of a fresh adoption mystery on Wednesday after new reports she has adopted a one-year-old African boy.. Photo Credit: REUTERS/Eldson Chagara

By Christopher Thompson and Mabvuto Banda

LIPUNGA, Malawi (Reuters) - Pop star Madonna is adopting a one-year-old African boy who has lived in an orphanage since losing his mother shortly after birth, the chief of the Malawi village where the boy is from said on Wednesday.

Henderson Geza Dyedyereke, the headman of Lipunga, a village near the Zambian border, said he was informed of the adoption by Rev. Thomson Chipeta, the executive director of the Home of Hope Orphan Care Center in Mchinji, where the boy is being cared for.

"Rev. Chipeta came yesterday to inform me about the child David Banda who is 12 months," Dyedyereke told Reuters, adding Banda's father had told him two months ago that the adoption process was under way.

"The father told me that the child was going to America," he said.

Madonna's U.S.-based spokeswoman, Liz Rosenberg, said in an email: "Current legal issues regarding an adoption prevent me from making any official statement. I have been advised by lawyers to say nothing at this time."

A spokeswoman for the singer in London said: "We may have an official statement within 48 hours."

Malawi officials, including the information minister, said last week that Madonna had picked out a child shortly after arriving in the country on a humanitarian mission to highlight the plight of orphans.

Madonna's camp has repeatedly denied those reports.

On Wednesday Britain's Sun newspaper splashed a picture of the American singer dressed in a safari hat and smiling, with a young child it said she had chosen at an orphanage in Malawi strapped to her back.

Yohane Banda, the boy's father, was quoted in both the Sun and the Daily Mail as saying: "I am very happy. As you can see there is poverty in my village." Banda said he could not afford to bring up his son.

Madonna, who has a son and daughter, has spent most of the past week visiting orphanages and meeting charity workers as part of a campaign to publicise the plight of some 900,000 orphans in this impoverished nation of 13 million people, where AIDS has destroyed many families.

She has pledged to donate about $3 million to the campaign to help these children, many of whom are infected with HIV. The effort is being spearheaded by her Raising Malawi charity in the African nation.

"WORRIED" VOICES

But reports that she was planning to adopt a Malawian child have prompted criticism from some quarters.

Eye of the Child, a private Malawian child advocacy group, issued an open letter to Madonna on Tuesday questioning whether foreign adoptions were in the best interests of children.

Maxwell Matewere, executive director of the group, told Reuters on Wednesday that the group was concerned that Malawi law, which prevents adoptions by foreigners, was being broken in Madonna's case.

"We are a little bit worried that our laws are being violated with this adoption," Matewere said. "I don't think violating the law is in the best interests of the child."

Government officials have said that they would consider giving Madonna a waiver or exemption allowing her to adopt a child.

The 48-year-old singer and her film director husband Guy Ritchie reportedly plan to raise the child at their homes in Britain and the United States once the legal adoption process is completed.