Rebecca Cheptegei from Uganda (third from left), died after her home was set on fire. The man who allegedly assaulted her has also died, in a case that has renewed calls for awareness and more protection for women against domestic violence in Kenya.
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A man who allegedly poured gasoline on the Ugandan Olympic athlete Rebecca Cheptegei and set her on fire, killing her, also died of burns, according to the hospital where the two have been treated.
Dickson Ndiema Marangach died at the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital in Eldoret, Kenya, where distance runner Cheptegei died a few days ago. Cheptegei – who competed in the Paris Olympics a few weeks ago – is already based in Kenya, where many elite runners train.
“The two are reported to have argued before a piece of land where Cheptegei has built his house in Kenya’s Rift Valley,” Nairobi journalist Emmanuel Igunza reported for NPR Newscast. “The athlete’s family said they previously reported Marangach to the authorities for harassing their daughter, but no action was taken.”
The attack on Cheptegei, 33, took place at home in western Kenya last Sunday; his death was announced there. He reportedly suffered from pain in 75%-80% of his body, with Marangach suffering from 30%.
Tributes and condolences have poured in for Cheptegei, including a moment of appreciation for him on Sunday, during the Paralympic Games in Paris. The mother of two has served in the Ugandan People’s Defense Forces — and her family told Kenyan newspaper The Star that Cheptegei will be buried with military honors on Saturday.
Her fellow athletes say Cheptegei’s tragic death highlights an unfortunate trend of violence against female runners in particular and women in Kenya.
“It’s sad because we remember what happened to Agnes Tirop,” said Viola Cheptoo, a Kenyan runner who chairs Tirop’s Angels, an advocacy and support group that works against gender-based violence. The organization was named for Tirop, a Kenyan athlete who had been a rising star before he was stabbed to death shortly after returning home from the 2021 Tokyo Olympics.
“I feel like the same thing is happening over and over again,” Cheptoo said.
Femicide in Kenya is “a threat, it’s a pandemic,” he added.
Tirop died in Iten, a small community high in the Rift Valley that has an outsized status in the world of running. It has also developed a reputation as a place where men seek to take advantage of successful female athletes in track and field to generate paychecks.
As advocacy group Usikimye notes, at least three other female runners have died in Kenya – deaths blamed on husbands or boyfriends – in recent years. The same week Tirop died in 2021, runner Edith Muthoni was murdered in a house in the north-east of Nairobi. A year later, Damaris Mutua was strangled in Iten. Now Cheptegei, who died at his home in Trans Nzoia county near Iten, has been added to the toll.
“All these athletes have risen to the top of their careers and have been cut down” by people, Usikimye said. “The center of the line is finance.”
Kenya’s National Bureau of Statistics says more than a third of women in Kenya say they have experienced physical violence after the age of 15 – and the numbers are even worse if a woman is dating. In the 2022 Demographic and Health Survey, the agency reported that “37% of women who are currently married or cohabiting have experienced physical violence.”
Among the women who experienced physical or sexual violence in the government report, the same percentage – 42% – said they sought help as those who said they never told anyone and never asked for help to stop the violence.
When he spoke about the need to protect women and athletes, Cheptoo mentioned a well-known case from earlier this year, when a man named Collins Jumaisi Khalusha confessed to killing 42 women in about two years. Three weeks ago, Khalusha escaped from the Kenyan police station where he was detained. He and other prisoners were found to be inside jobs.
