The body of Ugandan Olympic athlete Rebecca Cheptegei who died after being set on fire by her partner in Kenya used to be obtained Friday by family and anti-femicide crusaders, forward of her burial a day later.
Cheptegei’s family met with dozens of activists Friday who had marched to the Moi Instructing and Referral Effectively being facility’s morgue within the western metropolis of Eldoret while chanting anti-femicide slogans.
She is the fourth female athlete to were killed by her partner in Kenya in yet another case of gender-primarily primarily based violence at the moment.
Viola Cheptoo, the founder of Tirop Angels – an organization that used to be formed in honour of athlete Agnes Tirop, who used to be stabbed to death in 2021, acknowledged stakeholders have to make sure that this is the final death of an athlete consequently of gender-primarily primarily based violence.
“We’re here to articulate that passable is passable, we’re tired of burying our sisters consequently of GBV,” she acknowledged.
It used to be a somber mood at the morgue as athletes and relations considered Cheptegei’s body which sustained 80% of burns after she used to be doused with gasoline by her partner Dickson Ndiema. Ndiema sustained 30% burns on his body and later succumbed.
Ndiema and Cheptegei were acknowledged to have quarrelled over a fraction of land that the athlete bought in Kenya, consistent with a document filed by the local chief.
Cheptegei competed within the women folk’s marathon at the Paris Olympics much less than a month earlier than the attack. She done in forty fourth location.
Cheptegei’s father, Joseph, acknowledged that the body will gain a temporary discontinue at their dwelling within the Endebess residing earlier than continuing to Bukwo in eastern Uganda for an evening vigil and burial on Saturday.
“We’re within the closing segment of giving my daughter the final appreciate,” a visibly distraught Joseph acknowledged.
He urged journalists final week that Ndiema used to be stalking and unsafe Cheptegei and the family had urged police.
Kenya’s high rates of violence in opposition to women folk have precipitated marches by traditional electorate in towns and cities this 12 months.
Four in 10 women folk or an estimated 41% of relationship or married Kenyan women folk have experienced bodily or sexual violence perpetrated by their contemporary or most up-to-date partner, consistent with the Kenya Demographic and Effectively being Scrutinize 2022.
