Olympic marathon runner killed by ex-boyfriend buried

Olympic marathon runner Rebecca Cheptegei, who was set ablaze by her former boyfriend and later died has been buried in her father’s homestead in jap Uganda.

As she was additionally a member of Uganda’s armed forces, troopers carried the coffin and she or he was given a three-volley salute.

Dickson Ndiema attacked Cheptegei with petrol slightly below a fortnight in the past outdoors her dwelling in neighbouring north-west Kenya, near the place she educated.

The 33-year-old’s killing, and its brutal nature, left her household distraught and shocked many others the world over.

It underscored the excessive ranges of violence in opposition to girls in Kenya and the truth that a number of feminine athletes have been victims in recent times.

Amongst these on the sombre and emotional funeral ceremony in a college area in Bukwo, Cheptegei’s dwelling district, had been fellow athletes carrying black T-shirts with the slogan “say no to gender-based violence”.

“We’re responsible as [a] authorities, but additionally the group is responsible,” Kenya’s Sports activities and Youth Affairs Minister Kipchumba Murkomen instructed mourners.

“Allow us to say the reality. It isn’t true that we didn’t know even in the local people that Rebecca was going through household issues.”

Cheptegei and Ndiema had reportedly been wrangling over a chunk of land.

One in every of her teammates on the current Paris Olympics, Stella Chesang, additionally spoke.

“It’s actually a tragic second in Uganda… and all of us associates. As a staff who we went to Paris with Rebecca, we actually felt it as a result of… we had been collectively, having fun with collectively and it’s actually unhappy,” she mentioned.

The Olympic marathon – through which she got here forty fourth – was Cheptegei’s final race.

Earlier, along with her coffin on show and draped within the Ugandan flag, native leaders held a memorial service.

They noticed a second of silence and gave a standing ovation as they paid their respects to the late athlete.

Councillors mentioned Cheptegei lived “a easy and targeted life” and all the time provided steering to her fellow athletes. “She impressed many kids within the space to hitch athletics,” one mentioned.

Additionally they proposed to call a highway and a neighborhood sports activities venue in her honour.

Cheptegei died in hospital 4 days after the assault. Medical doctors mentioned she had suffered burns on greater than 80% of her physique which “led to multi-organ failure”.

Ndiema, who was additionally burned after among the gasoline splashed on his personal physique, died on Monday.

He attacked the mother-of-two after she returned from a service at a church, the God’s Dwelling Ministry.

The pastor there, Caroline Atieno, remembers a “great… God-fearing particular person”.

After listening to about what had occurred, she managed to talk to Cheptegei on the cellphone whereas she was in hospital.

The athlete first requested about her kids, who had been each effective, the pastor instructed the BBC’s Africa Day by day podcast.

Then Cheptegei talked about her attacker: “You imply Dickson shouldn’t be capable of see all I’ve finished for him? He couldn’t keep in mind even one or two issues I’ve finished for him and cease setting me on fireplace? Why has he finished this to me?”

On Friday, relations, associates and activists in opposition to gender-based violence considered her coffin at a funeral dwelling within the Kenyan city of Eldoret, earlier than it was pushed away.

Her mom, Agnes Cheptegei, masking her face in anguish, was carrying a memento bag that the athlete obtained on the current Olympics.

She was wearing a T-shirt which had the slogan “being a girl shouldn’t be a demise sentence” printed on it.

The mother-of-two was the third feminine athlete to be killed in Kenya over the past three years. In every case, present or former romantic companions had been named as the primary suspects by police.

In 2021, world-record holder Agnes Tirop was stabbed to demise and 6 months later Damaris Mutua was strangled.

Assaults on girls have turn into a significant concern in Kenya. In 2022 at the least 34% of girls mentioned that they had skilled bodily violence, in keeping with a nationwide survey.

Some observers are saying that feminine athletes have gotten more and more weak.

“[This is] as a result of they go in opposition to conventional gender norms the place the lady is simply within the kitchen and simply cooking and caring for children. However now feminine athletes have gotten extra impartial, financially impartial,” mentioned Joan Chelimo, who co-founded Tirop’s Angels to assist spotlight the difficulty of violence in opposition to girls.

“We do not need this to occur to every other lady, whether or not an athlete or from the village, or a younger lady,” Rachel Kamweru, a spokesperson of the federal government’s division for gender and affirmative motion, instructed the BBC.

When Cheptegei first obtained into operating, she joined the Uganda Individuals’s Defence Forces in 2008 which helped help her.

Her final race was on the Paris Olympics. Though she got here forty fourth folks in her dwelling space nonetheless referred to her as “champion”.

She received gold on the World Mountain and Path Operating Championships in Chiang Mai, Thailand, in 2022.