As It Occurs6:31Rebecca Cheptegei is the third elite feminine athlete killed in Kenya since 2021
WARNING: This text comprises particulars of home violence.
Joan Chelimo Melly retains questioning if there’s one thing she may have carried out to save lots of Rebecca Cheptegei’s life.
Cheptegei, a 33-year-old Ugandan Olympic runner and mom of two women, died this week after she was doused in gasoline and set on hearth Sunday at her residence in Endebess, Kenya. Police have recognized her ex-boyfriend as the principle suspect.
Chelimo Melly, a Kenyan Romanian runner and advocate in opposition to gender-based violence, met Cheptegei briefly final month, after they each competed on the 2024 Summer season Olympics in Paris.
“I simply really feel unhappy as a result of perhaps I may have carried out one thing,” Chelimo Melly informed As It Occurs host Nil Koksal. “I did not know what she was going by way of.”
Cheptegei is the third elite feminine athlete killed in a suspected case of home violence since 2021.
Advocates say Kenya is going through an epidemic of gender-based violence and killings, and that feminine athletes are focused, partly, as a result of they defy conventional roles, and since their success makes them weak to monetary exploitation.
“We’re failing our ladies,” stated Zaina Kombo of Amnesty Worldwide Kenya.
‘It actually broke my coronary heart’
Trans-Nzoia County Police Commander Jeremiah ole Kosiom stated Monday that Cheptegei’s associate, Dickson Ndiema, purchased a can of gasoline and attacked her throughout a disagreement on Sunday. Cheptegei’s household says the pair cut up up in February.
Ndiema was additionally burned and is being handled in hospital. He has not but been charged.
When Chelimo Melly realized what had been carried out to Cheptegei, she instantly considered her late buddy Agnes Jebet Tirop.
Tirop, a 25-year-old Olympic runner and two-time world championship bronze medalist, was stabbed to dying in her residence in Iten, Kenya, in 2021. Her husband Ibrahim Rotich was charged together with her homicide, and has pleaded not responsible.
The next yr, Kenyan-born runner Damaris Muthee Mutua was discovered strangled in Iten. Her boyfriend Koki Fai is needed for her homicide.
Tirop’s homicide impressed Chelimo Melly to staff up with different Kenyan athletes to discovered Tirop’s Angels, a corporation that works to stop gender-based violence in Kenya.
The group travels to villages, faculties and athletic camps to teach women and younger ladies concerning the warning indicators of home abuse and the way to report it. Additionally they advocate for higher legal guidelines to guard ladies in Kenya, and assist ladies and women escape from abusive conditions.
“We have saved many lives and we have had many success tales,” Chelimo Melly stated.
These successes, she says, maintain her motivated when issues are powerful. However Cheptegei’s homicide, she says, proves there’s nonetheless an extended solution to go.
“Simply listening to the information, it actually broke my coronary heart,” she stated.
Chelimo Melly says abusive males goal feminine athletes partly as a result of they excel in fields lengthy dominated by males, but additionally to manage the cash they earn in sports activities.
That is why she says Tirop’s Angels educates women on monetary literacy, and pushes athletics brokers to make sure the ladies they symbolize are paid by way of their very own financial institution accounts, and never these of their husbands.
However the situation of gender-based violence extends far past the athletic group.
In January, hundreds of Kenyans took to the streets to protest what they are saying is an epidemic of femicide, which the United Nations defines because the “intentional killing” of ladies and women that “could also be pushed by stereotyped gender roles … unequal energy relations between ladies and men, or dangerous social norms.”
The group Femicide Rely Kenya, which tracks these killings by way of police, media and public experiences, recorded 152 killings in 2023, the very best tally because the group started monitoring the stats in 2018.
Almost 34 per cent of Kenyan women and girls aged 15 to 49 years have suffered bodily violence, based on authorities knowledge from 2022, with married ladies at specific danger.
It is one thing Moureen Atieno Omolo is all too aware of.
The 36-year-old Kenyan says she was unable to sleep for days after listening to about Cheptegei’s grisly homicide. Each time she closed her eyes, recollections of her violent marriage got here flooding again.
Orphaned in her teenagers, Omolo was married on the age of 15 to a person aged 22. The abuse started nearly instantly, she informed Reuters, finally escalating to the purpose of him gouging out her left eye and slashing her left hand with a machete in 2018.
The assault and his threats to kill their three kids led her to desert the wedding and file a case in opposition to him.
“I ought to have left him years in the past when he first threatened me,” she stated. “He took away my self-confidence.”
Ugandan Olympic marathon runner Rebecca Cheptegei has died, days after a person believed to be her boyfriend doused her in gasoline and set her on hearth. Two different feminine athletes have died because of intimate associate violence in Kenya since 2021.
Requires justice
Cheptegei’s father, Joseph Cheptegei, spoke to journalists Thursday exterior the hospital the place his daughter died from her accidents, and the place her accused killer remains to be recovering.
He stated he reported his daughter’s ex-boyfriend to police earlier than, and nothing was carried out to guard her.
“The felony who harmed my daughter is a assassin and I’m but to see what the safety officers are doing,” he stated. “He’s nonetheless free and would possibly even flee.”
Chelimo Melly famous that her buddy Tirop’s husband is free on bail pending a verdict in his trial. Mutua’s suspected killer stays on the lam.
“The perpetrators are usually not being held accountable,” she stated. “You’ll be able to kill somebody and you’ll nonetheless be free.”
She retains pondering again to her one dialog with Cheptegei. She says the runner was nervous to compete in her first Olympic Video games, however largely, she simply appeared excited to be there.
“She appeared glad,” Chelimo Melly stated. “I want I knew. I may have simply rescued her from that.”
For anybody affected by household or intimate associate violence, there’s help accessible by way of disaster traces and native help companies. For those who’re in instant hazard or worry to your security or that of others round you, please name 911.
With recordsdata from Reuters and The Related Press. Interview with Joan Chelimo Melly produced by Morgan Passi
