US pop icon Madonna disappointed hundreds of villagers who were unable to see her and adopted son David Banda when she returned on Tuesday to the orphanage where she found the toddler.

"We have been disappointed with Madonna. We didn't see her nor did we see David. We came here to see both of them," Adam Chipula (60) told AFP.

Chiphula was one 400 villagers who turned up at Home of Hope orphanage in Mchinji, 120 kilometres from the capital Lilongwe, to hope to see the singer and David.

Some of the villagers, most of them barefoot, climbed trees and the brick wall fence of the sprawling orphanage, but were blocked by several plainclothes and uniformed police, who also chased a contigent of journalists away, leading to scuffles.

The journalists, mostly from international media who have been chasing Madonna since she arrived in Malawi on Sunday, were involved in fist fights with police.

"We have been instructed not to let any intruder into the orphanage," said one police officer.

Madonna's chief security officer, who was not identified, said: "This is a private function."

Journalists were finally chased away and unable to take photos of Madonna and David, who was returning to his orphanage for the second time since he was adopted last year.

Madonna spent two hours visiting the centre, and used a different route to exit from the orphanage without being photographed.

She had come to the centre to officially open a state-of-the art hostel to accommodate 500 orphans, which she built through her charity Raising Malawi.

"She came to pay back to the orphanage which gave her David," Chipililo Mushenge, one of the disappointed villagers, said.

"Why can't she allow us to see David. We only hear that he is growing into a healthy baby. It's quite unfair for Madonna to treat us like that when David is our own baby," she said.

Mushenge said most of the villagers had come by foot very early hoping to see both Madonna and David.

"We just wanted to thank her for keeping our David safe," she added.

The orphanage, with over 100 workers, has a nursery as well as primary and secondary schools.

AFP