North Africa was covered with Marian basilicas long before Gaul

The very first evangelization of this great continent began in North Africa, in the 2nd century AD. At that time, Numidia (the eastern part of Algeria and the Maghreb) became a province of the Roman Empire, and welcomed the first disciples of Christ who had arrived to evangelize. By the 5th century, during the time of St. Augustine (a Berber, Father and Doctor of the Church from North Africa), the Maghreb had become a flourishing part of Christianity, and was covered with basilicas and Marian shrines.

With the Arab invasions of the 7th century, North Africa became increasingly and forcibly Islamicized, closing itself off to the light of the Gospel.

It wasn't until the 19th century that evangelization of the African continent was resumed on a grand scale - but in the meantime, the 17th-century Huguenot emigration had already brought the Gospel to South Africa.

Miracles, visits and other apparitions of the Virgin Mary on African soil are numerous. One of the most recent took place before the terrible Rwandan genocide: Mary appeared in  Kibeho, between 1981 and 1989, to call for prayers and to warn of the approaching war and atrocities we all remember.

How Marian is Africa? To answer this question, we can name the splendid Basilica of Our Lady of Peace in Yamoussoukro, Ivory Coast; and the no less magnificent Basilica of Our Lady of Africa, on the Algerian coast of the Maghreb, which overlooks the white city of Algiers and attracts both Christian and Muslim worshippers.

Marian Encyclopedia