Ugandan athlete and Olympian Rebecca Cheptegei died in September 2024 after being set alight by a man she knew in Eldoret, Kenya. Cheptegei’s murder was reported to have been about a conflict over land ownership. Her attacker, Dickson Ndiema, has since died from injuries sustained in the attack.
Cheptegei is not the first woman athlete to be murdered in Kenya. In 2021, Agnes Tirop, an Olympic runner, was stabbed to death in her home in Iten. In 2022, Damaris Mutua was found strangled, also in Iten, and her boyfriend is wanted for her murder.
While all the victims in these murders were competitive athletes, these deaths are part of a larger constellation of murders of women across Kenya. Investigative media house Africa Uncensored estimates that 500 women were killed in Kenya between 2017 and 2024. Femicide Count, a Kenyan organisation, recorded 152 cases of femicide in 2023 based on media reports.
