Ugandan Olympian Rebecca Cheptegei’s striker dies in hospital | Olympic Information

Adeyemi Adeyemi

World Courant

The person who attacked Ugandan runner Rebecca Cheptegei has died from accidents he sustained when he poured petrol on the Olympic athlete, the Kenyan hospital the place he was being handled mentioned.

In response to police, Dickson Ndiema Marangach attacked Cheptegei in her dwelling in western Kenya on September 1. The mom of two suffered 80 p.c burns and died final week.

Marangach additionally suffered 30 p.c burns within the assault and was handled within the intensive care unit of the Moi Instructing and Referral Hospital (MTRH) within the Rift Valley city of Eldoret in Kenya.

Marangach died at 7:50 p.m. native time (16:50 GMT) on Monday, mentioned Daniel Lang’at, a hospital spokesman.

“He died from his accidents and the burns he sustained,” Lang’at advised Reuters information company.

In response to police in Kenya, Marangach sneaked into her dwelling in Endebess, close to the Ugandan border, whereas she was in church together with her kids, aged 9 and 11.

Her father, Joseph Cheptegei, advised reporters that the dispute with Marangach was over the property the place she lived together with her sister and daughters. He advised Kenyan media final week that Marangach had purchased 5 liters (1.3 gallons) of gasoline after which hidden in a rooster coop earlier than the assault.

“He poured the petrol over her and set her on fireplace. When she known as her sister for assist, he threatened her with a machete and he or she ran away.”

In response to police, the couple had “fixed household feuds.”

The United Nations condemned her “violent homicide”, with Stephane Dujarric, spokesman for UN chief Antonio Guterres, saying: “Gender-based violence is among the most widespread human rights violations on this planet and should be handled as such.”

Tributes pour in after Cheptegei memorial in Paris

Cheptegei, who completed forty fourth in Paris, is the third elite athlete to be murdered in Kenya since October 2021. Her dying has drawn consideration to home violence within the East African nation, notably throughout the working neighborhood.

She can be buried on September 14 close to her household dwelling in jap Uganda, in accordance with the nation’s Olympic Committee.

On Sunday, she was paid tribute by the Paris Paralympic Video games, when a photograph of Cheptegei appeared on a big display screen after the marathon occasions on the ultimate day of the Video games. The tribute was greeted with applause by the spectators on the Esplanade des Invalides.

Town of Paris has introduced that it’s going to honor Cheptegei by naming a sports activities venue after her.

Tributes have poured in for the runner, who was Uganda’s girls’s marathon file holder and likewise served within the Uganda Peoples’ Defence Forces, the place she held the rank of sergeant.

“Our sport has misplaced a gifted athlete in essentially the most tragic and unthinkable circumstances,” mentioned World Athletics President Sebastian Coe.

“Rebecca was an extremely versatile runner who nonetheless had rather a lot to supply on the street, within the mountains and on cross-country trails.”

Coe mentioned he was in discussions with members of the World Athletics governing council “to evaluate how our safeguarding insurance policies may very well be improved to embody abuse outdoors of sport, and to carry collectively stakeholders from all disciplines of athletics to hitch forces to finest defend our feminine athletes from abuse of every kind”.

Cheptegei’s dying highlights gender-based violence in Kenya

Human rights teams say feminine athletes in Kenya, the place many worldwide runners practice within the highlands, are at excessive threat of exploitation and violence by males who depend on their prize cash, which far exceeds native revenue.

“It could have been actual justice if he had been in jail and thought of what he had performed. That is undoubtedly not optimistic information,” mentioned Viola Cheptoo, co-founder of Tirop’s Angels, a assist group for survivors of home violence within the Kenyan sports activities neighborhood.

“The shock of Rebecca’s dying continues to be contemporary,” Cheptoo advised Reuters.

Cheptoo co-founded Tirop’s Angels in reminiscence of Agnes Tirop, a rising star in Kenya’s extremely aggressive athletics world, who was discovered useless in her dwelling within the city of Iten in October 2021 with a number of stab wounds to her neck.

Ibrahim Rotich, Tirop’s husband, was accused of her homicide and has pleaded not responsible. The case is ongoing.

Since 2021, a minimum of two different athletes have died by the hands of their companions.

Throughout Kenya, 41 p.c of married girls have skilled bodily violence, in comparison with 20 p.c of single girls.

In response to the UN, a minimum of 500 girls and ladies have been murdered in Kenya since 2016.

Figures from UN Ladies Africa present that there have been 89,000 stories of murdered girls and ladies worldwide in 2022, the very best quantity in 20 years. Greater than half of girls and ladies had been murdered by intimate companions or different members of the family.

Kenya’s Sports activities Minister Kipchumba Murkomen mentioned the Olympian’s dying was a “critical reminder” that extra should be performed to fight gender-based violence.


Ugandan Olympian Rebecca Cheptegei’s striker dies in hospital | Olympic Information

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