Alleged killer of Ugandan Olympian dies from burns, hospital says
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Uganda's Rebecca Cheptegei competing at the marathon at the Paris Olympics on Aug 26. She died on Sept 5.
PHOTO: REUTERS
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ELDORET – The former partner of Ugandan athlete and Olympian Rebecca Cheptegei, who is accused of killing her by dousing her in petrol and setting her on fire, has died from burns suffered during the attack.
The Kenyan hospital where he was being treated confirmed the news on Sept 10.
Cheptegei, 33, who competed in the marathon at the recent Paris Olympics, suffered burns to more than 75 per cent of her body in the Sept 1 attack and died four days later.
Her former boyfriend, Dickson Ndiema Marangach, died at 7.50pm on Sept 9, said Daniel Lang’at, a spokesperson at Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital in Eldoret in western Kenya, where Cheptegei was also treated and died.
“He died from his injuries, the burns he sustained,” Lang’at said.
Local media reported that Marangach had suffered 30 per cent burns when he assaulted Cheptegei as she was returning home from church with her children.
Cheptegei, who finished 44th in Paris, is the third elite sportswoman to be killed in Kenya since October 2021. Her death has put the spotlight on domestic violence in the country, particularly within its running community.
Rights groups have said that female athletes in Kenya, where many international runners train in the high-altitude highlands, are at a high risk of exploitation and violence at the hands of men drawn to their prize money, which far exceeds local incomes.
“Justice really would have been for him to sit in jail and think about what he had done. This is not positive news whatsoever,” said Viola Cheptoo, co-founder of Tirop’s Angels, a support group for survivors of domestic violence in Kenya’s athletic community.
“The shock of Rebecca’s death is still fresh,” Cheptoo told Reuters.
Cheptoo co-founded Tirop’s Angels in memory of Agnes Tirop, a rising star in Kenya’s highly competitive athletics scene, who was found dead in her home
Ibrahim Rotich, Tirop’s husband, was charged with her murder
Nearly 34 per cent of Kenyan girls and women between 15 and 49 have suffered physical violence, according to government data from 2022, with married women at particular risk. The 2022 survey also found that 41 per cent of married women had faced violence.
Globally, a woman is killed by someone in her own family every 11 minutes, according to a 2023 United Nations report. REUTERS
