Rebecca Cheptegei, Ugandan Olympic marathon runner, dies at the age of 33 after her partner was attacked with petrol

Rebecca Cheptegei, a long-distance runner from Uganda who competed in the women’s marathon at the Paris Summer Olympics, died days after her partner doused her with petrol and then set her on fire. She was 33 years old.

Cheptegei was attacked in her home in Trans Nzoia County, Kenya on Monday. Police Commissioner Jeremiah ole Kosiom told media that Cheptegei’s partner Dickson Ndiema bought a jerrycan of petrol, poured it on her during an argument and then set her on fire.

Cheptegei was immediately taken to the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital in Eldoret. She arrived there with burns on 80 percent of her body and completely sedated. Hospital spokesman Owen Menach said on Thursday that Cheptegei died in the morning of multiple organ failure.

Ndiema also suffered burns and is being treated in the same hospital.

Rebecca’s father, Joseph Cheptegei, told the Associated Press that his daughter had been “very supportive” of her and that he wanted her killer to be brought to justice.

“The perpetrator who caused pain to my daughter is a murderer and I have yet to see what the security officials are doing,” he said. “He is still at large and may even escape.”

The statistics on violence against women, particularly intimate partner violence, are alarming in Kenya. According to government figures, almost 34% of Kenyan girls and women between the ages of 15 and 49 have been victims of physical violence, and for married women the figure is as high as 41%.

Cheptegei is the third Ugandan athlete since 2021 to die in an attack by her partner. Aspiring runner Agnes Tirop, just 25, was found dead in her home in 2021 with multiple stab wounds. The case is still ongoing, but her husband Ibrahim Rotich was charged with murder and pleaded not guilty. In 2022, the decomposing body of Ugandan-born Bahraini runner Damaris Muthee was found in the home of an Ethiopian runner. An autopsy report revealed that she had been strangled. The Ethiopian runner is the prime suspect in her murder case but has not yet been arrested.

Fellow Ugandan athlete James Kirwa, who visited Cheptegai in hospital, had nothing but good things to say about his close friend. He told the BBC that she was “a very personable person. (She) helped us all, even financially, and she brought me training shoes when she came back from the Olympics. She was like an older sister to me.”