FUNERAL FOR SLAIN OLYMPIC ATHLETE CHEPTEGEI TO HOLD IN UGANDA SEPT 14

September 8, 2024

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Organisers announced on Sunday that Rebecca Cheptegei, an Olympic runner from Uganda, will have her funeral on September 14 in her own country. Rebecca passed away in Kenya after her boyfriend set her on fire.

The 33-year-old, who took part in the women’s marathon at the Olympics in Paris last month, passed away on Thursday from serious burns, four days after being doused with petrol and set ablaze at her western Kenyan home.

“The burial date of Rebecca Cheptegei has been set for September 14, in Kongasis sub county in Bukwo district (eastern Uganda),” Beatrice Ayikoru, secretary general of the Uganda Olympic Committee and a member of the funeral organising committee, told AFP.

The family home of Cheptegei is located in Bukwo, which is 380 kilometres (240 miles) northeast of Kampala, the capital of Uganda, near the Kenyan border.

Cheptegei’s death, the most recent horrifying instance of gender-based violence in Kenya, where at least two other athletes have perished at the hands of their partners, was met with grief and indignation.

According to the police, Dickson Ndiema Marangach, Cheptegei’s Kenyan lover, who is undergoing treatment in a hospital after suffering burns, carried out the attack on Sunday of last week.

AFP