Olympian Rebecca Cheptegei’s parents demand justice

Ugandan Olympic athlete Rebecca Cheptegei’s family has demanded justice for their daughter who died at a hospital in Kenya on Thursday.

The 33-year-old marathon runner passed away four days after being doused in petrol and set on fire by her boyfriend.

Her father, Joseph Cheptegei, told reporters at the hospital that he wanted the person who killed his daughter to be prosecuted.

“The criminal who harmed my daughter is a murderer, and I have yet to see what the security officials are doing. He is still free and might even flee,” he said.

Cheptegei’s mother, Agnes, said she blamed the police officers in Endebess where the athlete living, for failing to keep her child’s home safe.

Before the incident, the mother of two and her partner had been heard fighting over the land on which her house lies.

Her parents said she had bought the land in Trans Nzoia county to be near Kenya’s elite athletics training centres.

Doctors say Cheptegei had been fully sedated following her admission to the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital in Eldoret city where she was being treated for extensive burns.

A doctor at the hospital, Kimani Mbugua, said she had died early on Thursday morning from multi-organ failure.

“There were severe burns on a significant portion on her body. These led to multi-organ failure, so we had kidney failure, cardiovascular failure, so most of her systems failed following the burns,” he said.

Cheptegei’s partner, Dickson Ndiema, had sustained burns over 30 per cent of his body and was still in the intensive care unit.

The athlete competed in the women’s marathon at the Paris Olympics less than a month before the attack, finishing in 44th place.

She was the third prominent sportswoman to be killed in Kenya since October 2021.