Elouara Khaya

Elouara Khaya is a Sahrawi woman human rights defender and member of the Sahrawi League for the Defence of Human Rights and against the Plunder of Natural Resources in Boujdour. The organization regularly campaigns for the right of Sahrawi people for self-determination and against the extraction of natural resources in the territory—including renewable energy and mining—without the consent of the local population.

Alongside her sister, Sultana Khaya, she has actively advocated for the Sahrawi people’s right to self-determination through peaceful demonstrations and human rights activism in occupied Western Sahara.

She was subjected, together with her sister and family, to a prolonged de facto house arrest and security siege imposed by the Moroccan authorities at their home in Boujdour. Several human rights organisations documented violations against her, including harassment, forced deportation, arbitrary restrictions on movement, and acts of torture and ill-treatment. The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention described the measures imposed against the Khaya sisters as arbitrary and politically discriminatory.