CALL it the result of patriarchal culture or whatever, but some men think they own women’s bodies and can do whatever they please with them. They are narcissistic, self-absorbed, and dangerous. That was clearly the case with Dickson Ndiema Marangach, the criminal who got in the news around the world recently after murdering his ex-girlfriend, Rebecca Cheptegei, Olympic marathon runner, Uganda’s national record holder in mountain running, and former world champion. Cheptegei was the breadwinner of an extended family comprising her parents, a dozen siblings and her two daughters aged 9 and 11, and had reportedly gone to the police at least three times this year to lodge complaints over threats and physical abuse by Marangach, but beyond warning the felon to stay away from her home, the police had reportedly not done much to protect her. In February, he had allegedly beaten her up and broke her phone.
On August 31, neighbours reported hearing arguments after she returned from church with her daughters. On September 1, following a dispute over certain properties, Marangach attacked Cheptegei, a member of Uganda’s armed forces, with petrol at her residence in Endebess, Trans-Nzoia County, Kenya. The ensuing burns covered 80 percent of her body, and she died following multiple organ failures at the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital in Eldoret on September 5. On September 9, Marangach also died in the same hospital from the burns sustained during the inferno, which covered 40 percent of his body. Cheptegei, who was born on the Kenyan side of the Kenyan-Ugandan border and had taken up residence in Kenya because of the training facilities available to athletes in the country, has since been buried in her father’s homestead in eastern Uganda after a sombre funeral with full military honours. She was a sergeant.
As she was the fourth athlete to have been killed under similar circumstances since 2021, Cheptegei’s death sparked fresh discussions on gender-based violence in Kenya. At the funeral procession held for her in Eldoret on September 13, activists denounced gender-based violence. Her remains were then taken to Uganda, where she was buried with military honours the following day. At the highly charged funeral ceremony in a school field in Kapsyiwo village, Bukwo, Cheptegei’s home district, fellow athletes wore black T-shirts with the slogan “Say no to gender-based violence.” Delivering President Yoweri Museveni’s message on the occasion, Uganda’s Minister of State for Sports, Hon. Peter Ogwang, said: “It’s very unfortunate that we have lost Rebecca who had been our great ambassador lifting the Ugandan flag high, under barbaric acts of gender-based violence. As a country we condemn with the strongest terms possible the barbaric actions of domestic violence which led to the death of Rebecca. I urge Ugandans to break the silence on gender-based violence and say no to it.”He also urged Ugandan athletes using the training facilities in Kenya to return home, saying that the Teryet national high altitude training centre had been completed.
Cheptegei’s story is indeed a distressing one. An athlete who should be enjoying some fun time after representing her country on the global stage was murdered in the most brutal fashion by a depraved ex who was obviously enabled in large part by the inaction of the police despite the victim’s several complaints. The killer had been exhibiting violent tendencies previously, and clearly got worse in the face of the lack of recompense for his actions. Surely, anyone who could douse a fellow human in fire could do any other thing he fancied, however brutal. As the human society literally regresses with the near total loss of family and moral values, then, it has become imperative for women, and indeed everyone, to be extremely careful about who they go out with. There are so many bloodthirsty killers out there in society looking for easy prey, and they are to be avoided by all means, regardless of anything they claim they can offer in a relationship. It is a fact that people easily provoked can kill any time, and it is telling that the killer in this case also died from the burns he sustained while carrying out his murderous act. Many people have been dispatched to their early graves waiting for their violent partners to change.
A long-distance runner par excellence, Cheptegei represented Uganda at several world championships, including IAAF World Cross Country Championships and the World Mountain and Trail Running Championships. In 2010, she finished 15th at the U-20 race in the 38th IAAF World Cross Country Championships at Myslecinek Park in Bydgoszcz, Poland; won the year’s 1500m race at the München Pfingstmeeting in Munich, Germany, then finished 19th in the 800m race at Rehlingen Pfingstsportfest in Rehlingen. She finished 15th at the Regensburg Sparkassen-Gala 1500m race, 10th at the Janusz Kusociński Memorial 1500m race in Warsaw, and first at the Kampala 10,000 m race in Kampala, Uganda. In 2011, she finished 55th in the senior race final at the 39th IAAF World Cross Country Championships, Punta Umbria; second at the Madrid Half Marathon, third in the Camargo Spanish 10,000 m Road Running Championships in Camargo; second at the Cantalejo Half Marathon, and 10th at the 10 km race at the Lisbon São Silvestre da Amadora. Cheptegei finished 68th in the senior race at the 40th IAAF World Cross Country Championships in Bydgoszcz in 2013, won the 47th iteration of the Cross Internacional Ciutat de Granollers and the 10,000 m in the Crevillente San Silvestre, then emerged 14th in the 5000m at the Meeting Iberoamericano de Atletismo, Huelva, in 2014. She participated in so many other games over the years, including the World Athletics Championships and the women’s marathon at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris. Sadly, her sun set at midday.
As we have said time and again, crime can only fester where there are no consequences for it. Cheptegei’s killer had committed so many crimes against her and got away with them. That, then, emboldened him to see her as mere chattel, and to put an end to her existence in a most brutal fashion. It is instructive that the Kenyan authorities recognised their failure in this regard, although whether they will act fast and prevent yet another tragedy is a different issue entirely. Said Kipchumba Murkomen, Kenya’s Sports and Youth Affairs Minister: “We are guilty as a government, but also the community is guilty. Let us say the truth. It is not true that we did not know even in the local community that Rebecca was facing family problems.”
The government must not fail the other victims who are still lucky to be alive.
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