Ugandan Olympian Rebecca Cheptegei dies after being burned by partner

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Ugandan Olympic athlete Rebecca Cheptegei has died at a Kenyan hospital the place she was being handled after 80% of her physique was burned in an assault by her associate, a hospital official confirmed Thursday. She was 33.

Owen Menach, a spokesperson at Moi Educating and Referral Hospital in Eldoret metropolis, mentioned the long-distance runner died early Thursday, the morning after her organs failed. She had been totally sedated on admission.

Cheptegei competed within the girls’s marathon on the Paris Olympics lower than a month earlier than the assault. She completed in forty fourth place.

Her father, Joseph Cheptegei, instructed journalists on the hospital that he had misplaced a daughter who was “very supportive” and mentioned he hoped to get justice.

“As it’s now, the prison who harmed my daughter is a assassin and I’m but to see what the safety officers are doing,” the daddy mentioned. “He’s nonetheless free and would possibly even flee.”

Trans Nzoia County Police Commander Jeremiah ole Kosiom mentioned Monday that Cheptegei’s associate, Dickson Ndiema, purchased a can of gasoline, poured it on her and set her ablaze throughout a disagreement Sunday. Ndiema was additionally burned and was being handled on the similar hospital.

Menach mentioned Ndiema was nonetheless within the intensive care unit with burns over 30% of his physique however was “enhancing and steady.”

Cheptegei’s dad and mom mentioned their daughter purchased land in Trans Nzoia to be close to Kenya’s many athletic coaching facilities. A report filed by the native chief mentioned Cheptegei and Ndiema had been heard combating earlier than the assault over the land the place her home was constructed.

The Uganda Athletics Federation eulogized Cheptegei on the social platform X, writing, “We’re deeply saddened to announce the passing of our athlete, Rebecca Cheptegei, early this morning who tragically fell sufferer to home violence. As a federation, we condemn such acts and name for justice. Could her soul relaxation In Peace.”

Uganda Olympic Committee President Donald Rukare referred to as the assault “a cowardly and mindless act that has led to the lack of an excellent athlete.”

Kenya’s Sports activities Minister Kipchumba Murkomen mentioned that the federal government would guarantee justice for the sufferer.

“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 wrote in a press release.

Uganda’s First Girl Janet Museveni referred to as Cheptegei’s demise resulting from home violence “deeply disturbing.”

Worldwide Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach mentioned, “Rebecca’s participation within the Paris 2024 girls’s marathon was a supply of inspiration, satisfaction and pleasure.”

The United Nations strongly condemned Cheptegei’s demise.

U.N. spokesman Stéphane Dujarric recalled the phrases of Secretary-Common António Guterres who mentioned, “We nonetheless reside in a male-dominated tradition that leaves girls susceptible by denying them equality in dignity and rights.”

Each 11 minutes on common, a girl or woman is killed by an intimate associate or member of the family someplace on the earth, in line with figures from UN Girls, the company selling gender equality, and the U.N. Workplace on Medication and Crime.

“We after all suppose that the true numbers are a lot increased,” Dujarric mentioned.

He mentioned the denial of girls’s rights leaves societies much less peaceable, economies much less affluent, and the world much less simply, “however a special world is feasible.”

In 2023, Ugandan Olympic runner and steeplechaser Benjamin Kiplagat was discovered useless with stab wounds. In 2022, Kenyan-born Bahraini athlete Damaris Muthee was discovered useless and a postmortem report said that she was strangled. In 2021, long-distance runner Agnes Tirop was stabbed to demise at her house. Her husband, Ibrahim Rotich, was arrested and charged with homicide, the case is ongoing.

Kenya’s excessive charges of violence in opposition to girls have prompted marches by peculiar residents in cities and cities this yr.

4 in 10 girls or an estimated 41% of courting or married Kenyan girls have skilled bodily or sexual violence perpetrated by their present or most up-to-date associate, in line with the Kenya Demographic and Well being Survey 2022.