Dassa

Dassa-Zoumé is 125 miles from the coast.

A replica of the Lourdes Grotto was inaugurated in 1954, near a spring (which in the past used to inspire terror because the sodden ground used to swallow up the unfortunate).

This town became the place of a national pilgrimage, later of an international pilgrimage. Each year on August 15, crowds flock to the shrine, coming from Benin, Togo, Niger, and Burkina Faso.

A large shrine is under construction. It will be twinned with the first basilica of the West to have been dedicated to Mary: Rome's basilica of Saint Mary Major.

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Attilio GALLI, Madre della Chiesa dei Cinque continenti, Ed. Segno, Udine, 1997.