The suspect in the murder of marathon runner Rebecca Cheptegei died on Monday evening, the hospital in western Kenya where he was being treated told Agence France-Presse (AFP) on Tuesday, September 10. He succumbed to burns caused by setting fire to the Ugandan marathoner, who died on September 5.
Presented by Kenyan police as the athlete’s companion, Dickson Ndiema Marangach suffered 30% burns during this deadly attack, which became an emblematic case of violence against women.
the 1stAhem In September, Rebecca Cheptegei was doused with petrol and set on fire as she returned home from church with her children in Endebess, western Kenya. More than 80% burned, the 33-year-old athlete died a few days later. She will be buried on Saturday in her family’s village in eastern Uganda.
Numerous femicides in Kenya
According to Rebecca Cheptegei’s father, the attack was due to a dispute over the land his daughter had bought to build her house.
This murder, which occurred just weeks after his participation in the Paris Olympic Games (JO) marathon, where he finished 44th, sparked emotion and outrage around the world. Stéphane Dujarric, spokesman for the UN Secretary-General, “firmly” condemned this “violent murder”, “which illustrates a broader problem that is too often ignored”violence against women. The city of Paris announced that it would name a sports venue after Rebecca Cheptegei.
The death of the marathon runner adds to the numerous victims of gender-based violence in Kenya, where the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime has recorded the deaths of 725 women due to gender-based murders in 2022.
The athletics world has been in mourning three times in three years over such murders. In October 2021, the promising athlete Agnes Tirop (25 years old), double world bronze medallist in the 10,000m (2017, 2019) and fourth at the Tokyo Olympics in the 5,000m, was found stabbed to death in her home in Iten. A famous training site for long-distance running in the Rift Valley. Her husband, Emmanuel Ibrahim Rotich, is on trial for murder. He denies the allegations. His trial is ongoing.
In April 2022, a Kenyan-born Bahraini athlete, Damaris Mutua, was found dead in Iten. Her partner, who fled the scene, is suspected of having killed her.
