Ugandans paid tribute yesterday to Olympian Rebecca Cheptegei, who died after her partner set her on fire in Kenya, finally burying her near her family village.The 33-year-old debuted this summer in the women’s marathon at the Paris Olympics.Cheptegei returned to her home in the highlands of western Kenya, an area popular with international runners for its high altitude training facilities, after coming 44th in the marathon at the Paris Olympics on August 11.It would be her final race.Three weeks later her former boyfriend, Dickson Ndiema Marangach, allegedly attacked Cheptegei as she returned from church with her two daughters and younger sister in the village of Kinyoro, Kenya police and her family said.Her father Joseph Cheptegei told Reuters that his daughter had approached police at least three times to file complaints against Marangach, most recently on August 30, two days before the alleged attack by her former partner.She suffered burns to 80% of her body and succumbed to her injuries four days later.“I don’t think I am going to make it,” she told her father while being treated in hospital, he said. “If I die, just bury me at home in Uganda.”The brutal assault shocked the East African region and prompted a global outpouring of tributes, with activists condemning another act of gender-based violence in Kenya.Residents, officials and relatives waited in the cold morning light yesterday to pay their respects in the village of Bukwo, some 380km (240 miles) northeast of Uganda’s capital Kampala.“We are extremely saddened,” said her estranged husband Simon Ayeko, with whom she had two daughters.“As a father it has been very difficult,” he told AFP, explaining he had not been able to break the news to their children. “Slowly we will tell them the truth.”The service to honour Cheptegei, a sergeant in the Uganda Peoples’ Defence Forces (UPDF), started around 10am (0700 GMT), with officials and relatives gathering at the local council office.The coffin, swathed in the Ugandan flag, was saluted by officers from the UPDF, who carried her body into the room overlooking the remote rolling hills of her childhood.The athlete was a “heroine”, local presidential representative Bessie Modest Ajilong told AFP, describing her as “out of ordinary”.“As leaders, we saw Cheptegei as an inspiration,” she said.Her body was moved from the local council headquarters to a nearby sports stadium where hundreds gathered to pay their respects.Cheptegei was finally laid to rest among the trees in the mountains, lowered into the ground with a gun salute – a tribute usually reserved for senior Ugandan officers – and prayers by the local clerics.Uganda’s Sports Minister Peter Ogwang condemned the “barbaric and cowardly” attack that had taken her life, and said the government would give roughly $13,000 to each of Cheptegei’s children.Scores of athletes, among them Kenyan athletes Mary Keitany and Daniel Komen, travelled to the small village to attend the ceremonies.Coach Alex Malinga, who trained her as a teenager, told AFP: “Cheptegei was one of those who inspired the talented young that one day they will be like her.”Police said Marangach sneaked into her home to hide while she was at church with her children.The couple had argued over ownership of the property where she lived with her sister Dorcas Cherop and daughters, according to her family.“I think at that time, their relationship had become sour,” Cheptegei’s brother-in-law, Moses Kipsiro, told AFP.“I didn’t know then something was wrong,” said Kipsiro, who previously trained with Cheptegei and also hails from Bukwo.Her attacker later died from injuries sustained in the assault.The vicious assault has thrown yet another spotlight on what activists have called a femicide epidemic.Kenya reported 725 femicide cases in 2022 alone, according to the latest UN figures.A report the following year by Kenya’s National Bureau of Statistics found 34% 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.Rights groups say female athletes in Kenya are at a high risk of exploitation and violence by men drawn to their prize money, which far exceeds local incomes.Cheptegei’s sporting successes include winning the 2021 World Mountain and Trail Running Championships in Thailand, and a year later earning first place in the Padova Marathon in Italy and setting a national record for the marathon.Born in eastern Uganda in 1991, she met Marangach during a training visit to Kenya, later moving to the country to pursue her dream of becoming an elite runner.The circumstances of Cheptegei’s death shocked the world, but her name may yet inspire future athletes, with the French capital planning to name a sports facility in her honour.“She dazzled us here in Paris. We saw her. Her beauty, her strength, her freedom,” the city’s mayor Anne Hidalgo told reporters. “Paris will not forget her.”
