A Kenyan man who killed Ugandan runner Rebecca Cheptegei has died from injuries sustained when he poured petrol over the Olympic athlete, the hospital treating him said Tuesday. The attack on the 33-year-old has been greeted with sorrow and anger as yet another horrific example of gender-based violence in Kenya. Police said Dickson Ndiema Marangach, 32, assaulted Cheptegei in her home in Endebess near the Ugandan border on September 1. The mother-of-two suffered 80 percent burns and died last week.
Marangach also incurred 41 percent burns, according to the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital in the Rift Valley city of Eldoret.
“He developed respiratory failure as a result of the severe airway burns and sepsis that led to his eventual death,” the hospital said in a statement, adding that he died at 6:30 pm (1530 GMT) on Monday.
“We consider his case as justice delivered,” Cheptegei’s father, Joseph Cheptegei, told AFP.
“We’re now only interested in burying our daughter,” he added, expressing exhaustion over the ordeal.
Cheptegei is due to be buried on Saturday near her family home in eastern Uganda, according to the country’s Olympic Committee.
Her father criticised officials, saying they should have done more to protect his daughter after her complaints about Marangach.
“I blame the police for taking too long to act when we had repeatedly sought their intervention,” he said.
Local media say Cheptegei’s young daughters witnessed the attack, which came just weeks after she made her Olympic debut in the women’s marathon in Paris, where she finished 44th.
Police said Marangach snuck into her home while she was at church with her children.
Her family say the couple had argued over ownership of the property where she lived with her 16-year-old sister Dorcas Cherop and daughters.
Kenyan newspaper The Daily Nation reported on Monday how Cherop witnessed the assault.
“It was a horrifying scene that I don’t want to remember,” she told the paper.
“When I dashed out with a blanket so as to cover up my sister and extinguish the fire which was consuming her, Dickson kicked me, and I fell down.
“He threatened to slash me with the panga (machete) he was carrying,” she said.
Violence against women is widespread in Kenya, which saw 725 femicide cases in 2022 alone, according to the latest UN figures.
A 2023 report by Kenya’s National Bureau of Statistics found 34 percent of women had experienced physical violence since the age of 15.
At least two other athletes, Agnes Tirop and Damaris Mutua, have lost their lives in domestic violence incidents since 2021.
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