NAIROBI, Kenya — Ugandan Olympic athlete Rebecca Cheptegei has died at a Kenyan hospital where she was being treated after sustaining 80% burns on her body in an attack by her partner. She was 33.
A spokesperson at the hospital, Owen Menach, confirmed her death Thursday. Cheptegei was receiving treatment at the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital in Eldoret city.
Trans Nzoia County Police Commander Jeremiah ole Kosiom said on Monday that Cheptegei’s partner, Dickson Ndiema, bought a jerrican of petrol, poured it on her and set her ablaze during a disagreement Sunday. Ndiema was also burned and was being treated at the same hospital.
Cheptegei’s parents said their daughter bought land in Trans Nzoia to be near the county’s many athletic training centers.
A report filed by the local chief states that the couple was heard fighting over the land where the house was built before the fire started.
Peter Ogwang, Uganda’s minister of state for sports, said Kenyan authorities were investigating the killing, which has shone a spotlight on violence experienced by women in the east African nation.
Nearly 34% of Kenyan girls and women aged 15-49 years have suffered physical violence, according to government data from 2022, with married women at particular risk.
The 2022 survey found that 41% of married women had faced violence.
A report by UN Women and the UN Office on drugs and crime said that in 2022, African countries collectively recorded the largest number of killings of women, both in absolute terms and relative to the size of the continent’s female population.
In October 2021, Olympian runner Agnes Tirop, a rising star in Kenya’s highly competitive athletics scene, was found dead in her home in the town of Iten, with multiple stab wounds to the neck. She was 25.
Ibrahim Rotich, her husband, was charged with her murder and has pleaded not guilty. The case is ongoing.
Tirop’s killing shocked Kenya, with current and former athletes setting up ‘Tirop’s Angels’ in 2022 to combat domestic violence.
Joan Chelimo, one of the founders of the nonprofit, told Reuters that female athletes were at high risk of exploitation and violence at the hands of men drawn to their money.
“They get into these traps of predators who pose in their lives as lovers,” she said.
Information from Reuters contributed to this report.