Madonna Meets Up With Newly Adopted Daughter Mercy James In London (Photo)

Mercy Chifundo James, the precious little girl Madonna adopted from Malawi, was secretly flown from her home country to London early Saturday morning. Read more on Madonna’s adopted daughter Mercy James below.

Madonna and her other children flew to London to meet up with her newly adopted daughter,  Mercy James, 3, who was being flown in from Malawi.

“A private jet flew in from South Africa and collected her at five minutes to six last evening,” an airport source tells PEOPLE. “She connected to London from Johannesburg at 10:30 p.m.”

Little Mercy will join big sister Lourdes and brothers Rocco and David Banda (who was also adopted from Malawi).

Malawi’s highest court approved the adoption June 12, overturning the previous ruling  in April stating that Madonna had not spent enough time in Malawi to be given another child.

More on Mercy James from the AFP:

“Mercy James left Malawi to join Madonna on Friday night,” the official told AFP, adding that the three-year-old was accompanied on the private jet by a nanny, the nanny’s husband and Phillip Bosphe, the head of Madonna’s charity, Raising Malawi.

They were flying to London via South Africa, he added.

An employee at Kumbali Lodge where the group stayed, confirmed that the girl had left with them.

Last Sunday, a Malawian man, James Kambewa, who says he is the girl’s father told AFP he had given up his fight to block the adoption, and said he wished the singer well.

On June 12 Malawi’s Supreme Court granted Madonna’s adoption of Chifundo James, whose name means “Mercy,” after a lower court had turned it down on the grounds that the star had failed to meet an 18-month residency requirement.

Madonna, 50, first met Mercy at Kondanani orphanage in the southern Malawi district of Thyolo, 30 kilometres (20 miles) from the commercial capital Blantyre, during her first visit to the poor southern African nation in 2006.

She had already adopted another Malawian child, David Banda, and said that she wanted him to have a sibling from his home country. The residency requirement was also waived in his case.

The application had been met by fierce criticism by child welfare groups and rights activists who were opposed to the singer’s efforts to take another child away from the country.

They argued that international adoption should be viewed as a last resort, even though Malawi is home to an estimated 560,000 children who have lost at least one parent to AIDS.

Malawi has no law specifically on international adoption, leaving judges to decide each petition case by case.

Madonna’s charity, Raising Malawi, provides support for orphans and vulnerable children.

She has built a multi-purpose community centre at Mphandula village, 50 kilometres from Lilongwe, which looks after more than 8,000 orphans from scores of villages in the area.

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Photos: Wenn.com

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Posted by: Monya

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