Alleged killer of Ugandan Olympian dies from burns, hospital says

By Ammu Kannampilly

ELDORET, Kenya (Reuters) -The man accused of dousing in petrol and setting alight Olympic runner Rebecca Cheptegei has died from burns sustained during the fatal attack on the Ugandan athlete, a hospital official said on Tuesday.

Cheptegei, 33, who competed in the marathon at the Paris Olympics, suffered burns to more than 75% of her body in the Sept. 1 attack and died four days later.

Her former boyfriend, Dickson Ndiema Marangach, died at 1830 (1530 GMT) on Monday, said Philip Kirwa, chief executive officer of the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital in Eldoret in western Kenya where Marangach was being treated and where Cheptegei also died.

"He developed respiratory failure as a result of the severe airway burns and sepsis that led to his eventual death," Kirwa said in a statement.

Kirwa said Marangach had suffered over 41% burns following his assault on Cheptegei, which local media reported to have happened after she returned home from church with her children.

Cheptegei, who finished 44th in Paris, is the third elite sportswoman to be killed in Kenya since October 2021. Her death has put the spotlight on domestic violence in the East African country, particularly within its running community.

"This guy is dead because he killed my daughter. He has died because of his actions," Cheptegei's father, Joseph Cheptegei, told Reuters.

Rights groups say female athletes in Kenya, where many international runners train in the high-altitude highlands, are at a high risk of exploitation and violence at the hands of men drawn to their prize money, which far exceeds local incomes.

"Justice really would have been for him to sit in jail and think about what he had done. This is not positive news whatsoever," said Viola Cheptoo, co-founder of Tirop's Angels, a support group for survivors of domestic violence in Kenya's athletic community.

"The shock of Rebecca's death is still fresh," Cheptoo told Reuters.

Cheptoo co-founded Tirop's Angels in memory of Agnes Tirop, a rising star in Kenya's highly competitive athletics scene, who was found dead in her home in the town of Iten in October 2021, with multiple stab wounds to the neck.

Ibrahim Rotich, Tirop's husband, was charged with her murder and has pleaded not guilty. The case is ongoing.

Nearly 34% of Kenyan girls and women aged 15-49 years have suffered physical violence, according to government data from 2022, with married women at particular risk. The 2022 survey found that 41% of married women had faced violence.

Globally, a woman is killed by someone in her own family every 11 minutes, according to a 2023 UN Women study.

"I don't wish bad things on anyone, but of course I would have loved for him to face the law as an example for others so that these attacks on women can stop," Beatrice Ayikoru, secretary-general of the Uganda Olympic Committee, told Reuters.

(Additional reporting by Humphrey Malalo, Sonia Rao and Elias Biryabarema; Writing by Hereward Holland and George Obulutsa; Editing by Alexander Winning, Ros Russell and Christina Fincher)