The funeral for Ugandan Olympic runner Rebecca Cheptegei, who died in Kenya later being poised on hearth via her boyfriend, can be hung on September 14 in her house nation, organisers mentioned on Sunday.
The 33-year-old, who competed within the ladies’s marathon on the Paris Olympics closing era, succumbed to hideous burns on Thursday, 4 days later being doused with petrol and poised alight at her house in western Kenya.
“The burial date of Rebecca Cheptegei has been set for September 14, in Kongasis sub-county in Bukwo district (eastern Uganda),” Beatrice Ayikoru, secretary basic of the Uganda Olympic Committee and a member of the funeral establishing committee, advised AFP.
Bukwo is the site of Cheptegei’s people house and lies at the border with Kenya about 380 kilometres (240 miles) northeast of the Ugandan capital Kampala.
Cheptegei’s dying used to be greeted with rage and distress, the unedited unfortunate business of gender-based violence in Kenya the place no less than two alternative athletes have misplaced their lives by the hands in their companions.
Medical doctors mentioned she had suffered burns to greater than 80 in keeping with cent of her frame later the assault on Sunday closing month.
Police say it used to be performed via Cheptegei’s Kenyan spouse, Dickson Ndiema Marangach, who additionally suffered severe burns and is being handled in sanatorium.
Kenyan media mentioned Cheptegei’s kids, elderly 9 and 11, had witnessed the assault.
– ‘Unthinkable circumstances’ –
The town of Paris mentioned on Friday it could celebrate Cheptegei, who got here forty fourth in her Olympic marathon debut in August, via naming a sports activities venue later her.
Tributes have poured in for the runner, who used to be Uganda’s ladies’s marathon document holder and in addition served within the Uganda Peoples’ Defence Forces, maintaining the rank of sergeant.
“Our sport has lost a talented athlete in the most tragic and unthinkable circumstances,” Global Athletics President Sebastian Coe mentioned.
“Rebecca was an incredibly versatile runner who still had lots left to give on the roads, mountains, and cross-country trails.”
Coe mentioned he used to be in discussions with participants of Global Athletics’ governing council “to assess how our safeguarding policies might be enhanced to include abuse outside of the sport, and bringing together stakeholders from all areas of athletics to combine forces to protect our female athletes to the best of our abilities from abuse of all kinds.”
Cheptegei’s dying has thrown a focus on home violence and femicide in Kenya, the place Sports activities Minister Kipchumba Murkomen mentioned it used to be a “stark reminder” that extra will have to be completed to battle gender-based violence.
The United International locations additionally condemned her “violent murder,” with Stephane Dujarric, spokesman for UN eminent Antonio Guterres, announcing: “Gender-based violence is one of the most prevalent human rights violations in the world, and should be treated as such.”
She used to be the 3rd feminine athlete killed via her spouse since 2021.
AFP