Last Sunday, August 11, Rebecca Cheptegei fulfilled her dream of representing her country at the Paris Olympics. The Ugandan athlete, a national record holder, hoped to compete for a medal, but she ultimately lost out and finished in 44th position. Less than a month later, her ex-boyfriend, Kenyan Dickson Ndiema, broke into her home in Endebess, Kenya, poured a five-liter can of gasoline on her and set it on fire. Cheptegei arrived at the hospital with 80% burns on his body and He did not survive the attack.
Two days earlier, her family had filed a complaint of gender-based violence against Ndiema with the Kenyan police. Her parents decided to take the step after learning that the man had followed their daughter from Kenya to Uganda and that they had a heated argument over ownership of the land on which they had built a house together, in a town in Kenya’s Trans-Nzoia County. The athlete, who hails from a region bordering Uganda, was staying at home to be closer to Kenya’s many sports training centres.