NAIROBI: Ugandan Olympic marathon runner Rebecca Cheptegei died on Thursday, 4 days after she was doused in petrol and set on fireplace by her boyfriend in Kenya, within the newest assault on a feminine athlete within the nation.
Cheptegei, 33, who competed within the Paris Olympics, suffered burns to greater than 75% of her physique in Sunday’s assault, Kenyan and Ugandan media reported.
She is the third distinguished sportswoman to be killed in Kenya since October 2021.
“We’ve got learnt of the unhappy passing on of our Olympic athlete Rebecca Cheptegei […] following a vicious assault by her boyfriend,” Donald Rukare, president of Uganda Olympics Committee, stated in a submit on X.
“Might her light soul relaxation in peace and we strongly condemn violence towards girls,” he stated.
The runner, who completed forty fourth in Paris, was admitted to a hospital within the Kenyan Rift Valley metropolis of Eldoret after the assault.
Cheptegei “handed right this moment morning at 5:30am after her organs failed,” Owen Menach, senior director of medical companies at Moi Educating and Referral Hospital, instructed Reuters, including {that a} full report concerning the circumstances of her dying could be launched on Thursday afternoon.
Kenyan newspaper The Normal stated her attacker additionally sustained accidents within the incident and was admitted to the intensive care unit with 30% burns, citing docs on the similar hospital.
Kenyan Sports activities Minister Kipchumba Murkomen described Cheptegei’s dying as a loss “to your entire area”.
“This tragedy is a stark reminder that we should do extra to fight gender-based violence in our society, which in recent times has reared its ugly head in elite sporting circles,” he stated in a press release.
Uganda’s athletics federation referred to as for justice for Cheptegei.
The athlete’s father, Joseph Cheptegui, instructed reporters in Eldoret that he was asking the federal government to guard her kids and properties “in order that nobody will get into her residence and take something.”
“The land […] has introduced issues,” he stated, following native media studies that the mom of two and her boyfriend had been preventing over property within the days main as much as the assault.
Peter Ogwang, Uganda’s minister of state for sports activities, stated Kenyan authorities had been investigating the killing, which has shone a highlight on violence skilled by girls within the East African nation.
Practically 34% of Kenyan women and girls aged 15-49 years have suffered bodily violence, in line with authorities information from 2022, with married girls at explicit danger.
The 2022 survey discovered that 41% of married girls had confronted violence.
A report by UN Girls and the UN Workplace on Medication and Crime stated that in 2022, African international locations collectively recorded the biggest variety of killings of ladies, each in absolute phrases and relative to the scale of the continent’s feminine inhabitants.
In October 2021, Olympian runner Agnes Tirop, a rising star in Kenya’s extremely aggressive athletics scene, was discovered lifeless in her residence within the city of Iten, with a number of stab wounds to the neck.
Ibrahim Rotich, her husband, was charged along with her homicide and has pleaded not responsible. The case is ongoing.
The 25-year-old’s killing shocked Kenya, with present and former athletes establishing ‘Tirop’s Angels’ in 2022 to fight home violence.
Joan Chelimo, one of many founders of the non-profit, instructed Reuters that feminine athletes had been at excessive danger of exploitation and violence by the hands of males drawn to their cash.
“They get into these traps of predators who pose of their lives as lovers,” she stated.
