Dickson Ndiema dies after he set Olympic runner and himself on fire

ELDORET, Kenya

Dickson Ndiema, the man accused of setting Ugandan Olympian Rebecca Cheptegei on fire, leading to her death, is dead.

Sources at an Eldoret hospital on Tuesday told our correspondent that Ndiema, who was admitted to the facility with burn wounds, breathed his last on Monday night.

Ndiema was accused of attacking Cheptegei at her home in Trans Nzoia, western Kenya, over an unresolved land dispute.

He allegedly ambushed the marathoner as she returned home, before dousing her with petrol and setting her alight.

Dickson Ndiema

Efforts by the athlete to save her life were unsuccessful as her attacker continued to douse her with more petrol.

Cheptegei sustained more than 80 percent burns, according to medical teams that attended to her at Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital (MTRH), while Ndiema sustained over 30 percent burns.

Cheptegei, 33, will be buried on Saturday in Uganda.

Cheptegei, who finished 44th in Paris, is the third elite sportswoman to be killed in Kenya since October 2021. Her death has put the spotlight on domestic violence in the country, particularly within its running community.

Rights groups say female athletes in Kenya, where many international runners train in the high-altitude highlands, are at a high risk of exploitation and violence at the hands of men drawn to their prize money, which far exceeds local incomes.

“Justice really would have been for him to sit in jail and think about what he had done. This is not positive news whatsoever,” said Viola Cheptoo, co-founder of Tirop’s Angels, a support group for survivors of domestic violence in Kenya’s athletic community.

“The shock of Rebecca’s death is still fresh,” Ms Cheptoo told Reuters.

Cheptoo co-founded Tirop’s Angels in memory of Agnes Tirop, a rising star in Kenya’s highly competitive athletics scene, who was found dead in her home in the town of Iten in October 2021, with multiple stab wounds to the neck.

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

Nearly 34 percent 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 percent of married women had faced violence.

Globally, a woman is killed by someone in her own family every 11 minutes, according to a 2023 UN Women study.