Malawi is set to roll out a first set of anti-coronavirus restrictions this week, the president said, after overruling a court ban on lockdown measures to tackle a surge in cases.

The dream of a new life in South Africa has turned into a nightmare for hundreds of Ethiopian migrants held in overcrowded Malawian jails despite having served their sentences for illegal entry.

"This prison is hell on earth. We are in prison despite paying the fine," a tearful 15-year-old Eyasu Tadiya told AFP inside Dedza prison, 85 kilometers (50 miles) south of Lilongwe, the administrative capital.

Malawian President Peter Mutharika has cancelled his trip to a regional summit in Botswana to save money after foreign donors cut their contributions to his aid-dependent government over a corruption scandal, a minister said Sunday.

Donors -- who provide about 40 percent of Malawi's budget -- suspended payments of around $150 million (110 million euros) after British auditors revealed that $30 million was plundered from state coffers over a six-month period in 2013, in a scandal that has been dubbed "Cashgate".

Malawi has ordered police to shoot "dangerous criminals" who attack albinos in order to sell their body parts for witchcraft.

"Shoot every criminal who is violent when caught red-handed abducting people with albinism," the country's police chief Lexen Kachama told officers at the weekend, according to local media.

While helicopters and boats have been deployed in a military search and rescue operation for victims of devastating floods in Malawi, families and friends of the missing are digging for bodies.

Armed only with hoes, six young men on Saturday combed the banks of a new watercourse created by flash floods through Chilobwe, a shantytown five kilometres (three miles) from the commercial capital Blantyre.

The death toll from floods ravaging Malawi has risen to 176 with many more missing and 200,000 homeless, Vice President Saulos Chilima said Friday, as more heavy rain was predicted.

"The death toll is now 176 and over 200,000 have been displaced after their houses were destroyed by the floods," Chilima told a news conference. "At least 153 people are missing."

Malawi deployed military helicopters and boats Thursday in a bid to rescue desperate flood victims stranded on patches of high ground after raging waters killed at least 48 people and left 100,000 homeless.

"Around 800 people people have been rescued from the flooded areas in (the southern districts of) Nsanje and Chikwawa," Vice President Saulos Chilima said in a statement.

At least 48 people have been killed and nearly 70,000 left homeless by severe flooding in Malawi, the country's president announced during an appeal for international assistance.

"Since the flooding started 13,999 households have been affected, 69,995 (people) rendered homeless, (and) 48 lives have so far been lost since," President Peter Mutharika said in a statement detailing "the national disaster" Tuesday.

Flooding from heavy rains have killed at least 40 people in Mozambique and neighboring Malawi, where a state of natural disaster was declared Tuesday in nearly a third of the country.

In Mozambique, where some waters have risen to over double flood thresholds, a group of 25 school children was swept away by torrents Monday, and 18 others have been reported missing. 

Malawi President Peter Mutharika on Wednesday pardoned 197 prisoners from the country's overcrowded jails under an amnesty to mark Christmas, the home affairs ministry said.

"The pardon of the 197 prisoners is a symbol of forgiveness as the country commemorates its Christmas and New Year celebrations," it said in a statement.