NAIROBI — A Ugandan Olympic athlete based in Kenya died after being set on fire by her ex-boyfriend, her father said on Thursday, the latest incident in an epidemic of domestic violence against female athletes in this East African nation.
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Rael Ombuor
Cheptegei told The Washington Post that his daughter had reported the man, whom he and a neighbor referred to as her ex-boyfriend, to the police several times for domestic violence, including last Friday. The family was told to return to see police on Monday, but on Sunday the man, who was been identified as Dickson Nidema, returned with a machete, doused her in gasoline and set her alight in front of her daughters, ages 9 and 11, he said.
“Rebecca was coming from church with her two children, and it was just after 3 p.m.,” he said, citing a conversation with her after she was hospitalized. “It was about to rain so they started removing the clothes from the line, and Rebecca was at the chicken house … the guy came to the chicken area with petrol and poured it on her back, when Rebecca turned around, he poured some more and lit a fire. The children saw everything, even as their mother was burning.”
It was not the first time he had attacked her, he said.
“In January this year, he beat Rebecca, and he wanted to cut her up but Rebecca was saved by her brother,” Cheptegei said. “We reported to the police … the police did not handle this matter well, they were so slow.”
Paul Songok, a police officer with the Department of Criminal Investigation in Trans-Nzoia county, confirmed that the family had lodged complaints of attacks and threats at the local police station but said the most recent complaint referred to a land dispute.
Earlier this week, police commander Jeremiah ole Kosiom told reporters that the suspect, whom he identified as Nidema, set her on fire after a disagreement, and had also sustained burns and was now in the hospital. The Post was unable to reach Nidema for comment.
The father’s account was confirmed by a neighbor, Simon Kiptoek, 35. He said Cheptegei had left Nidema in January following an argument over his alleged infidelity, and sought help fleeing from him. He witnessed the immediate aftermath of the most recent attack and told The Post that the suspect had also spilled petrol on himself as he tried to pour more fuel onto her and been badly burned.
He said neighbors heard her screaming after she was set ablaze and had tried to extinguish the fire by rolling her in dirt before hurrying her to a nearby compound to douse her in a water tank.
Neighbors took her to hospital on a motorbike. Nidema took himself to hospital, Kiptoek said.
The murder follows the high-profile killings of other female long-distance runners in Kenya’s elite running town of Iten, some 20 miles from Eldoret: Kenyan Agnes Jebet Tirop, 25, whose husband was charged with her murder after she was stabbed to death in 2021; and Damaris Muthee Mutua, a 28-year-old Kenyan found strangled in 2022. Police launched a manhunt after her boyfriend, an Ethiopian runner, fled. He has not been found.
In Kenya, the average salary is around $200 per month. So the big cash prizes and sponsorship deals landed by top athletes often attract partners who want to control the athlete’s wealth, said marathon runner Viola Cheptoo of Tirop’s Angels, a charity set up by athletes after the young runner’s murder to combat gender-based violence.
“The abusers sometimes come in first as coaches,” she said, adding they were often easily able to manipulate young and inexperienced athletes. “Most of the time these relationships lead to abuse and manipulation.”
A Bloomberg investigation published last year unearthed dozens of other cases of alleged domestic abuse, violence and property theft involving female athletes in Iten. They included allegations by long-distance runner Lucy Njeri that in 2022, she was abducted by hit men hired by her husband after a property dispute. He didn’t respond to requests for comment by Bloomberg and The Post was unable to reach him.
Another female runner, Lucy Kabuu, said her former partner, a Nairobi policeman, attacked her several times in front of their daughter, threatened to shoot her and sold their properties without her consent. She first filed police complaints in 2014; the case is still ongoing.
Rebecca Cheptegei had originally moved to Kenya from Uganda because of violence in her home area, her father said, and bought land near the training grounds in Eldoret, where, like Iten, high altitude and a fierce running culture has produced a slew of Olympic champions. In Kenya, she met a man who quickly tried to take control of her property and house, he said.
“Whenever Rebecca came with things or had things he wanted to be the one that keeps or takes it away. That’s why they fought,” he said. “Rebecca told me that the man wanted to take away her property.”
He said that his daughter had broken up with Nidema, but said Cheptegei, who holds the women’s Ugandan marathon record, did not perform well at the Paris Olympics because she was so worried about his threats, her father said.
“She left for the Olympics when she was so stressed because this man was disturbing her, that’s why she probably did not perform well,” he said. “I have 13 children, Rebecca was the second-born and the whole family depended on her,” he said. “She was our pillar because we are poor and she was our only hope.”
Kenya’s Ministry of Gender, Culture, the Arts and Heritage did not respond to requests for comment about how many domestic violence cases were reported, or rates of arrests and prosecutions. Most court cases face a backlog of many years.
The U.N. says that nearly a quarter of Kenyan women experienced intimate partner violence last year; that rises to 38 percent if measured over a lifetime.
