Kenya: Rebecca Cheptegei's attacker dies from burns sustained when he set fire to Ugandan marathon runner

L'agresseur de Rebecca Cheptegei a succombé lui aussi à ses blessures. MAXPPP – STR

Dickson Ndiema Marangach avait été brûlé à 30 % lors de cette attaque mortelle, devenue un cas emblématique des violences faites aux femmes.

Rebecca Cheptegei's attacker died from burns sustained when he set fire to the Ugandan marathon runner, who died on Thursday, the hospital in western Kenya where he was being treated announced to AFP on Tuesday.

Presented by Kenyan police as the athlete's partner, Dickson Ndiema Marangach suffered 30% burns during this fatal attack, which has become an emblematic case of violence against women. "It’s true that we lost Dickson Ndiema last night around 8 pm", a communications manager at Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital (MTRH) in the city of Eldoret told AFP on Tuesday morning.

On September 1, the man doused Rebecca Cheptegei with gasoline and set her ablaze as she was returning from church with her children to her home in Endebess, western Kenya. The 33-year-old athlete died on Thursday with more than 80% burns. She will be buried on Saturday in her family's village in eastern Uganda.

According to Rebecca Cheptegei's father, the attack was caused by a dispute over the land his daughter had purchased to build her house. The murder, which came a few weeks after she competed in the marathon at the 44th Paris Olympics, sparked worldwide outrage and indignation. The spokesman for the UN Secretary-General, Stephane Dujarric, notably “firmly” condemned this "violent murder", "which illustrates a broader problem that is too often ignored", that of violence against women.

725 women killed

The city of Paris has announced that it will name a sports venue after her. Her death adds to those of many victims of gender-based violence in Kenya, where the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has recorded 725 women killed in gender-related murders in 2022. The world of athletics has been mourned three times in three years by this type of murder.

In October 2021, promising athlete Agnes Tirop (25 years old), double world bronze medalist in the 10,000m (2017, 2019) and 4th at the Tokyo Olympics in the 5,000m, was found stabbed to death at her home in Iten, a famous place training for long-distance running in the Rift Valley.

Her husband Emmanuel Ibrahim Rotich is being prosecuted for murder. He denies the charges. His trial is ongoing. In April 2022, another Bahraini athlete of Kenyan origin, Damaris Mutua, was found dead in Iten. Her partner, who is on the run, is suspected of killing her.