Nairobi, (KE):- Ugandan athlete Rebecca Cheptegei who was on Sunday attacked and set on fire by her boyfriend has sadly passed on.
Cheptegei, a distance runner who finished at the 44th position at the 2024 Paris Olympics died at the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital in Eldoret where she was admitted to the ICU.
The Hospital’s acting Director Dr Owen Menach confirmed she died last night after all her organs failed. “Unfortunately, we lost her after all her organs failed last night,” said Dr Menach, adding that the hospital would give a full report on the matter later in the day
Cheptegei who was staying at her house in the western Trans Nzoia County is said to have sustained 80 per cent burn injuries in the attack when her boyfriend doused her body with petrol and set her on fire.
The burns damaged most of her organs.
The said boyfriend Dickson Ndiema Marangach also sustained burn injuries during the attack and was also admitted to the same ICU facility with about 30 per cent burns.
On Sunday, Marangach is said to have sneaked into Cheptegei’s home with a five-litre jerrican full of petrol.
It is alleged that Cheptegei had gone to church with their children and when she returned, the man poured petrol on her and lit fire.
The athlete’s father Mzee Joseph Cheptegiei clarified that the two were just friends for some time and had been quarrelling over her land at Endebes in Trans Nzoia where the attack occurred.
“They were just friends and I wonder why he wanted to take away things belonging to my daughter,” Mzee Cheptegei stated, adding that the two had a case which was being investigated by the DCI.
Mzee Cheptegei said the two had separated for long but on Sunday the Marangach sneaked into the home where he staged the attack.
Cheptegei is survived by two children whose father is a different person living in Uganda.
Growing pattern of domestic violence
Cheptegei is not the first high-profile athlete to make headlines as the victim of domestic assault in Kenya. The most prominent case is that of Agnes Tirop.
In 2021, record-breaking Kenyan runner Tirop was found stabbed to death in her home. Tirop’s estranged husband Emmanuel Ibrahim Rotich, who denies involvement, is now being tried for her murder.
Tirop’s family and fellow Kenyan athletes launched a foundation in her honour to combat gender-based violence – Tirop’s Angels – which recently opened a centre in Kenya’s western town of Iten.
In 2023, Ugandan Olympic runner and steeplechaser Benjamin Kiplagat was found dead with stab wounds. His body was discovered in a car on the outskirts of Eldoret.
Earlier in 2022, Kenyan-born Bahraini athlete Damaris Muthee was found dead, with a post-mortem examination revealing that she had been strangled.
In October 2021, the night before Tirop’s death, a twenty-seven-year-old runner named Edith Muthoni, who lived east of Nairobi, was killed; her throat was slit with a machete.
In 2014, Lucy Kabuu, another runner, was sued by her ex-husband for control of half of her properties. In the Daily Nation, Kabuu argued that although some of the properties are in his name, she bought them all with her winnings; she has also accused him of stealing from her bank accounts and assaulting her.
(Kabuu’s ex-husband has denied the allegations, according to the Daily Nation, and argued that he contributed to the acquisition and development of several pieces of land. The case is ongoing.)
This past February, the Olympic gold medallist Vivian Cheruiyot told another Kenyan paper, the Standard, that her husband, Moses Kiplagat, had taken control of her properties, including gas stations and farmland, and that, when she objected, he abused her physically and psychologically. (Kiplagat has denied the allegations, the Standard reported and claimed that Cheruiyot was facing undisclosed social challenges.)
Family pressures and rivalries have been quoted as central to the raging fire that has cost many young souls their lives. Cases of control by partners have also been found.
Martha Akello, a runner, who lived next door to the Tirops in Iten, was disturbed by Rotich’s controlling behavior.
“We were neighbors, but he did not permit her to mingle with the other ladies,” she said in a previous interview with the New Yorker magazine.
“He had to accompany her to training. It’s like she was living in prison.”
There are also cases of insecurity as most of these husbands entirely depend on their talented partners for a livelihood.
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