The African Union Commission chairman, Dr Moussa Faki Mahamat, Thursday said the continent was deeply shocked by US President Trump's recent comment on immigrants from Africa and Haiti.

"At the moment when your meeting is being held, Africa has not finished digesting the statements of the President of the United States," Dr Mahmat said at the opening the 27th ministerial meetings of the AU in Addis Ababa.

"We were deeply shocked by the messages of contempt, hatred, desires for marginalisation and exclusion from Africa," he added.

Dr Mahamat went on: "Such statements, in the wake of others on Jerusalem and the reduction of contributions to the peacekeeping budget on a global scale, indicate that multilateralism is in serious crisis. The continent cannot be silent on this subject."

President Trump has denied describing Haiti and Africa as 'shithole countries', at the White House meeting about a week ago. The meeting focused on immigrants entering the US.

"The language used by me at the DACA meeting was tough, but this was not the language used. What was really tough was the outlandish proposal made - a big setback for DACA!" the US president twitted on January 12.

President Trump has since been the subject of criticism from Africa and the rest of the world.

A senator who attended the meeting told journalists that President Trump said: "Why are we having all these people from shithole countries come here?"

"We should bring in more people from places like Norway," he added, according to US media reports.