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Elghalia Djimi (Arabic: الغالية ادجيمي; born 28 May 1961) is the vice president of the organization Sahrawi Association of Victims of Grave Human Rights Violations Committed by the Moroccan State.[1] In this organization she records accounts of human rights violations and also coordinates the work of the organization in the absence of the president.[2] She is also a member of the Committee for the Families of Disappeared Saharawis.[3]
Elghalia Djimi was born in Agadir, Morocco in 1961. She was raised by her grandmother,[4] who disappeared in 1984 and has never returned. Djimi herself was also subject to a forceful disappearance in 1981,[1] and again between 1987 and 1991,[5] after participating in a protest against Moroccan occupation of Western Sahara. This time, she was abducted together with the famous human rights defender Aminatou Haidar.[1] During these three years and seven months[2][6] in prison she was exposed to different forms of torture,[4][5][7] and she still has traces of dog bites in her face, and no hair on her head because her scalp was burned with acid.[6] In prison she met her husband,[1] whom she married in 1991.[4]
In 1994, Djimi started to meet with other Saharawis who had been imprisoned, but her coordination efforts were stopped the same year by the Moroccan authorities.[5] In 1998 she succeeded in starting the work of meeting with other former prisoners and recording the human rights violations imposed on them, a work that continues up to this day.[5]
She was imprisoned again in March 2006 and in December 2008.[3]
She was later living in El Aiun,[1] with her husband and five children.[7]
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