By Winfred Watenya
The United Nations has mourned the loss of Ugandan Olympic athlete Rebecca Cheptegei, who died at a hospital in Eldoret, Kenya, on Thursday, just days after reportedly being set on fire by a boyfriend identified as Dickson Ndiema Marangach.
The 33-year-old marathon runner, who lived and trained in northwest Kenya, competed in the recent Olympic Games in Paris.
During a disagreement on Sunday, Cheptegei’s boyfriend doused her in petrol and set her alight, causing burns across 80 percent of her body, according to media reports.
UNAIDS Executive Director Uganda’s Winnie Byanyima urged everyone to “rise and end Gender based violence (GBV)”, stating that “silence is complicity.”
In mourning the loss of “our national star Olympian”, she also condemned “the culture of male domination & tolerance of violence against women, men and children”.
“Today we join the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) and UN Women in strongly condemning her violent murder,” Stéphane Dujarric, Spokesperson for the Secretary-General, told journalists in New York.
Dujarric used his daily media briefing to focus attention on this “tragic death”, saying it “illustrates a much bigger problem that is all too often ignored.”
Citing figures from UN Women and the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), he said that every 11 minutes on average, a woman or girl is killed by an intimate partner or family member somewhere in the world.
In a separate post, Byanyima recalled that the athlete ran “to feed her children, to take care of her parents and pay for the education of nieces & nephews”.
