PATRIARCHY IS MISOGYNY & FEMICIDE

Rebecca Cheptegei: Uganda athlete dies, days after boyfriend set her on fire

Athletics - World Athletics Championship - Women's Marathon - National Athletics Centre, Budapest, Hungary - Aug 26, 2023 Uganda's Rebecca Cheptegei in action during the women's marathon final.

September 05, 2024

NAIROBI — Ugandan Olympic marathon runner Rebecca Cheptegei died on Thursday (Sept 5), four days after she was doused in petrol and set on fire by her boyfriend in Kenya, in the latest attack on a female athlete in the country.

Cheptegei, 33, who competed in the Paris Olympics, suffered burns to more than 75 per cent of her body in Sunday's attack, Kenyan and Ugandan media reported.

She is the third prominent sportswoman to be killed in Kenya since October 2021.


"We have learnt of the sad passing on of our Olympic athlete Rebecca Cheptegei... following a vicious attack by her boyfriend," Donald Rukare, president of Uganda Olympics Committee, said in a post on X.

"May her gentle soul rest in peace and we strongly condemn violence against women," he said.

The runner, who finished 44th in Paris, was admitted to a hospital in the Kenyan Rift Valley city of Eldoret after the attack.

Cheptegei "passed today morning at 5.30 am after her organs failed," Owen Menach, senior director of clinical services at Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital, told Reuters, adding that a full report regarding the circumstances of her death would be released on Thursday afternoon.

Kenyan newspaper The Standard said her attacker also sustained injuries in the incident and was admitted to the intensive care unit with 30 per cent burns, citing doctors at the same hospital.

Kenyan Sports Minister Kipchumba Murkomen described Cheptegei's death as a loss "to the entire region".

"This tragedy is a stark reminder that we must do more to combat gender-based violence in our society, which in recent years has reared its ugly head in elite sporting circles," he said in a statement.

Uganda's athletics federation called for justice for Cheptegei.

The athlete's father, Joseph Cheptegei, told reporters in Eldoret that he was asking the government to protect her children and properties "so that no one will get into her home and take anything."

"The land... has brought problems," he said, following local media reports that the mother of two and her boyfriend had been fighting over property in the days leading up to the attack.

Peter Ogwang, Uganda's minister of state for sports, said Kenyan authorities were investigating the killing, which has shone a spotlight on violence experienced by women in the East African nation.

Nearly 34 per cent of Kenyan girls and women aged 15-49 years have suffered physical violence, according to government data from 2022, with married women at particular risk.

The 2022 survey found that 41 per cent of married women had faced violence.

A report by UN Women and the UN Office on Drugs and Crime said that in 2022, African countries collectively recorded the largest number of killings of women, both in absolute terms and relative to the size of the continent's female population.

In October 2021, Olympian runner Agnes Tirop, a rising star in Kenya's highly competitive athletics scene, was found dead in her home in the town of Iten, with multiple stab wounds to the neck.

Ibrahim Rotich, her husband, was charged with her murder and has pleaded not guilty. The case is ongoing.

The 25-year-old's killing shocked Kenya, with current and former athletes setting up 'Tirop's Angels' in 2022 to combat domestic violence.

Joan Chelimo, one of the founders of the non-profit, told Reuters that female athletes were at high risk of exploitation and violence at the hands of men drawn to their money.

"They get into these traps of predators who pose in their lives as lovers," she said.

Man Charged With Homicide in Killing of Gymnastics Champion Kara Welsh

By The Associated Press
September 7, 2024

University of Wisconsin-Whitewater student Kara Welsh. (University of Wisconsin-Whitewater via AP)

WHITEWATER, Wis.—A 23-year-old man has been charged with first-degree intentional homicide in the fatal shooting of a national gymnastics champion in his apartment near the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater campus.

Chad Richards made an initial appearance Friday via video in Walworth County Court.

Kara Welsh, 21, suffered multiple gunshot wounds following an altercation Aug. 30, according to a criminal complaint.

She was found in a pool of blood after Richards called 911. He told investigators that the two were arguing when he said Welsh grabbed his gun from a nightstand. Richards said he wrestled the gun away and shot Welsh because he “feared for his life,” the complaint continued.

Police found a handgun and shell casings on the apartment floor. Richards later was arrested. He told investigators that Welsh was his girlfriend.

The Associated Press left a message Friday afternoon seeking comment from Richards’s attorney, Gibson Hatch.

Richards was being held on a $1 million bond. His preliminary hearing is scheduled for Oct. 28.

Richards, of Loves Park, Illinois, was listed on the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater 2021–22 wrestling team roster.

Welsh, who was from Plainfield, Illinois, was majoring in management in the school’s College of Business and Economics. She was a member of the Warhawk gymnastics team and last year took the individual national title on vault at the NCAA Division III championships.

The University of Wisconsin-Whitewater campus is about 50 miles west of Milwaukee.