Ugandan Olympian Rebecca Cheptegei died of burns during the attack

NAIROBI, Kenya — Ugandan Olympic athlete Rebecca Cheptegei has died in a Kenyan hospital where she was being treated after suffering 80 percent burns on her body in an attack by her partner. She was 33 years old.

A hospital spokesman, Owen Menach, confirmed her death on Thursday. Cheptegei was undergoing treatment at the Moi Educational and Referral Hospital in Eldoret town.

Trans Nzoia County Police Commander Jeremiah ole Kosiom said on Monday that Cheptegei’s partner, Dickson Ndiema, bought a can of petrol, poured it on him and set it on fire during a dispute on Sunday. Ndiema was also burnt and was being treated at the same hospital.

Cheptegei’s parents said their daughter bought land in Trans Nzoia to be near the many sports training centers in the county.

A report filed by the local chief states that the couple was heard fighting over the land on which the house was built before the fire started.

Peter Ogwang, Uganda’s minister of state for sports, said Kenyan authorities were investigating the killing, which has drawn attention to the violence suffered by women in the East African nation.

Nearly 34 percent of Kenyan girls and women aged 15 to 49 have experienced physical violence, according to 2022 government data, with married women at particular risk.

The 2022 survey found that 41 percent of married women had experienced violence.

A report by UN Women and the UN Office on Drugs and Crime said that in 2022, African countries collectively had the highest number of murders of women, both in absolute terms and relative to the size of the female population from the continent.

In October 2021, Olympic runner Agnes Tirop, a rising star in Kenya’s highly competitive athletics scene, was found dead in her home in Iten town with multiple stab wounds to her neck. She was 25 years old.

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

Tirop’s killing shocked Kenya, current and former athletes set up ‘Tirop’s Angels’ in 2022 to fight domestic violence.

Joan Chelimo, one of the nonprofit’s founders, told Reuters that female athletes are at high risk of exploitation and violence from men attracted to their money.

“They fall into these traps of predators posing in their lives as lovers,” she said.

Information from Reuters contributed to this report.