The previous boyfriend of Ugandan Olympic athlete Rebecca Cheptegei, who killed her through surroundings her on fireplace, has himself died from burns sustained within the assault, a Kenyan medical institution reliable has mentioned.Dickson Ndiema ambushed the marathon runner as she returned house from church greater than per week in the past. He then doused her with petrol and set her ablaze.Native directors mentioned the 2 were in warfare over a small piece of land in north-west Kenya, the place Cheptegei lived and educated.Ndiema died on Monday evening on the in depth care unit, the place in step with the medical institution, he were admitted with burns on greater than 40% of his frame.”He advanced breathing failure on account of the critical airway burns and sepsis that ended in his eventual demise on Monday night time at 18:30 hours [15:30 GMT] regardless of life-saving measures,” a press liberate from Moi Instructing and Referral Medical institution mentioned.Cheptegei died remaining Thursday – 4 days after she used to be attacked. She suffered burns to greater than 80% of her frame.Neighbours mentioned that at the day of the assault, they heard screams ahead of Cheptegei got here operating against them shouting for lend a hand.Native media reported that Ndiema had sneaked into Cheptegei’s house in western Kenya’s Trans Nzoia county with a five-litre jerry can filled with petrol.One of the gasoline he poured on Cheptegei splashed onto his personal frame, in step with stories. Because of this, Ndiema were given stuck within the fireplace after he set his former accomplice alight.Ndiema used to be to stand fees as police mentioned they had been treating Cheptegei’s demise as homicide, with the previous boyfriend named as the primary suspect.However now that Ndiema has died, the legal case has been dropped and an inquest into the 2 deaths will likely be opened as an alternative.Each Ndiema and Cheptegei had been admitted to Moi Medical institution ahead of their deaths.Cheptegei’s demise stunned folks internationally, with fellow Ugandans announcing she used to be an inspiration to them.The 33-year-old Olympian used to be the 3rd feminine athlete to be killed in Kenya over the past 3 years. In every case, present or former romantic companions had been named as the primary suspects through police.In 2021, world-record holder Agnes Tirop used to be stabbed to demise and 6 months later Damaris Mutua used to be strangled.”I do not want dangerous issues on any individual, however after all I might have liked for him to stand the regulation for instance for others in order that those assaults on girls can forestall,” Beatrice Ayikoru, secretary-general of the Uganda Olympic Committee, advised the Reuters information company.Some observers are announcing that feminine athletes are changing into increasingly more susceptible.”[This is] as a result of they pass towards conventional gender norms the place the girl is simply within the kitchen and simply cooking and taking good care of children. However now feminine athletes are changing into extra impartial, financially impartial,” Joan Chelimo, who co-founded Tirop’s Angels to lend a hand spotlight the problem of violence towards girls.Cheptegei used to be born at the Kenyan aspect of the Kenya-Uganda border, however selected to move over and constitute Uganda to chase her athletics dream when she didn’t get a step forward in Kenya.When she first were given into operating, she joined the Uganda Other folks’s Defence Forces in 2008 and rose to sergeant rank.Her occupation incorporated competing on this yr’s Paris Olympics. Despite the fact that she got here forty fourth within the marathon, folks in her house house known as her “champion”.She additionally received gold on the International Mountain and Path Operating Championships in Chiang Mai, Thailand, in 2022.Cheptegei is about to be buried on Saturday at her ancestral house in Bukwo, Uganda.Assaults on girls have transform a significant worry in Kenya. In 2022 a minimum of 34% of ladies mentioned they’d skilled bodily violence, in step with a countrywide survey.”We are not looking for this to occur to some other lady, whether or not an athlete or from the village, or a tender woman,” Rachel Kamweru, a spokesperson the the federal government’s division for gender and affirmative motion, advised the BBC.
