#Agnes Tirop

[no-passaran]

33-year-old Ugandan marathon athlete Rebecca Cheptegei, who competed in this summer's Paris Olympic Games, has been killed by her ex-boyfriend. He doused her in petrol, set her on fire and burned her alive when she came back from church with her two daughters.

Gender-based violence is a major concern in Kenya, where Cheptegei lived and worked. In 2022, at least 34% of women in Kenya said they had experienced physical violence, according to a national survey.

Her death comes after the killings of fellow East African athletes Agnes Tirop in 2021 and Damaris Mutua in 2022, with their partners identified as the main suspects in both cases by the authorities.

Our thoughts are with her family, who are left without their loving relative and the family's main breadwinner.

[gachafem]

in the wake of numerous incidents of femicide and rape in africa, many african women have expressed their anger and sadness over the country's failure to protect them. and obviously you have a bunch of african men crying online about "angry feminists" and accusing women rightfully upset for "trying to start a gender war."

here are a few of the most disgusting comments made under a post where a woman told men to stop raping and killing women:

let it be known that africa—or any country—is not having a gender war. it isn't a "war" if only one side is being killed and raped by the other side. it isn't a "war" if one side is begging to be treated with humanity, while the other side taunts them by calling them angry feminists and delusional.

please show your solidarity for the women and girls in africa. justice for idowu christianah, justice for rebecca cheptegei, justice for agnes tirop.

[maaarine]

Olympic runner Cheptegei defied her violent ex. She lost her life anyway (Ammu Kannampilly, Reuters, Sep 14 2024)

"Cheptegei's killing so soon after the athlete had competed for Uganda in the Paris Olympics shocked the world.

But it was no surprise to Cheptegei or her family, her parents told Reuters.

Their story sheds light on the dark side of success for female athletes in Kenya's patriarchal society.

Elite runners can earn more money in a single marathon than many Kenyans do in a year.

They say their success frequently makes them targets for predatory men who try to manipulate them and wrest control of their assets.

Cheptegei was the third female runner to be killed in Kenya since 2021, allegedly by romantic partners.

Her funeral took place on Saturday in neighbouring Uganda's Bukwo district with full military honours, as the athlete was a member of the Ugandan defence forces.

Cheptegei had tried to protect herself.

A 33-year-old single mother of two born in Uganda, she had walked out of the relationship with Marangach, managed her own money and was breadwinner for an extended family including her parents, a dozen siblings and her two daughters, aged 9 and 11, family members said.

She had gone to police at least three times this year to report threats and physical abuse by Marangach, her father, Joseph, said.

He shared with Reuters police slips confirming complaints she filed in February and May, in Kinyoro and the nearby town of Kitale.

"This man is going to kill my child," Joseph said he told officers in February, after Marangach allegedly beat her up and broke her phone.

He said the police had told Marangach to stay away from Cheptegei's home, but he didn't listen.

"So we went back to the police and they were not keen to do anything else. My daughter died because the police failed." (…)

Esther Chemtai, a 24-year-old fellow athlete of Cheptegei's, said that when she was 18, she had also been in an abusive relationship with a man who wanted her to hand over all her earnings to him.

When she refused, he beat her.

Chemtai left him in January 2023, with the help of Tirop's Angels, who offered her support and counselling, she said.

Chemtai called Cheptegei a "straightforward person" who did not hesitate to walk away from controlling men.

"If she said no, it meant no," Chemtai said. (…)

Dorcas did not speak to Reuters about the attack, but she stressed her sister's drive to survive.

"My sister always told me it was very important for a woman to have her own money, to be empowered, not depend on anyone," she said.

Cheptegei suffered burns to 80% of her body. When she was hospitalised, her father said he could only recognise her voice.

She died four days later.

For Cheptegei's family, in mourning at their homestead an hour's drive from Rebecca's home, anger was matched by the depth of their loss.

"Everyone in this compound depended on her. I don't know what I will do now," her mother Agnes said, breaking down in tears."

[warningsine]

Ugandan Olympic athlete Rebecca Cheptegei has died after being set on fire by her boyfriend in Kenya, Uganda’s Olympic Committee chief said on Thursday.

“We have learnt of the sad passing on of our Olympic athlete Rebecca Cheptegei... following a vicious attack by her boyfriend,” Donald Rukare said in a post on X.

Cheptegei, 33, had sustained burns to 80 percent of her body, the acting head of the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital (MTRH) in the Rift Valley city of Eldorect where she was being treated, had told reporters on Tuesday.

“All her organs failed last night,” a medic at the facility told AFP Thursday.

Police had said a man named as Dickson Ndiema Marangach, identified as her partner, had allegedly doused Cheptegei with petrol and set her alight in an attack on Sunday at her home in Endebess in the western county of Trans-Nzoia.

The incident took place just weeks after Cheptegei had taken part in the marathon at the Paris Olympics, where she placed 44th.

Kenyan media had reported that one of Cheptegei’s daughters witnessed the assault at her mother’s home.

“He kicked me while I tried to run to the rescue of my mother,” Kenya’s The Standard reported her as saying.

“I immediately cried out for help, attracting a neighbour who tried to extinguish the flames with water, but it was not possible,” said the girl, who has not been named.

Marangach was also wounded in the incident, sustaining 30 percent burns on his body.

The assault comes two years after Kenyan-born athlete Damaris Mutua was found dead in Iten, a world-famous running hub in the Rift Valley.

And in 2021, record-breaking Kenyan runner Agnes Tirop, 25, was found stabbed to death at her home in Iten in 2021. Her estranged husband is on trial over her murder. He has denied the charges.

Latest figures from the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics published in January 2023 found that 34 percent of women in the country had experienced physical violence since the age of 15.

(AFP)

[beardedmrbean]

Ugandan long-distance runner Rebecca Cheptegei has died four days after being doused in petrol and set on fire by her former partner, authorities announced.

Cheptegei -- who had been receiving treatment at Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital in Eldoret City, Kenya -- succumbed to her injuries after sustaining burns to almost 80% of her body in the attack, which occurred on Sunday.

Cheptegei was doused with a can of gasoline before being set on fire during an argument over land, according to a police report. Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital announced Cheptegei died at the age of 33 after her organs failed on Thursday, according to hospital spokesperson Owen Menach.

"We have learnt of the sad passing of our Olympic athlete Rebecca Cheptegei following a vicious attack by her boyfriend," Donald Rukare, head of the Uganda Olympic Committee, announced Thursday on X. "May her gentle soul rest in peace and we strongly condemn violence against women. This was a cowardly and senseless act that has led to the loss of a great athlete. Her legacy will continue to endure."

The Ugandan marathon runner had competed in the women's marathon at the 2024 Paris Olympics, finishing in 44th place with a season's best time of 2:32:14, just a month before the fatal attack.

She had a personal best in the marathon of 2:22:47 set in December 2022.

The Ugandan athlete had been living in northwestern Kenya, with her father saying she recently bought land in Trans Nzoia County to build a home and be closer to Kenya's athletics training centers, according to The Associated Press.

Cheptegei's Kenyan partner, who allegedly carried out the attack -- identified as Dickson Ndiema -- is said to have sustained "serious burns" in the attack and is receiving treatment at the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital.

The Uganda Athletics Federation said it is "deeply saddened" by the passing of Cheptegei.

"We are deeply saddened to announce the passing of our athlete, Rebecca Cheptegei early this morning who tragically fell victim to domestic violence," the federation announced on Thursday. "As a federation, we condemn such acts and call for justice."

The incident is the latest in a string of domestic violence cases against female athletes in Kenya.

In 2021, Kenyan distance runner Agnes Tirop was found stabbed to death in her home in Iten, in northwest Kenya. Just a few weeks earlier, the rising athletics star had set a new women's 10 kilometer road running record at the "Adizero: Road to Records" event in Herzogenaurach, Germany.

Tirop's husband -- Ibrahim Rotich -- was subsequently arrested and charged with her murder. The case is currently ongoing.

Just a year later, Kenyan-Bahraini athlete Damaris Muthee Mutua, 28, was found murdered at her home in the same town, with Kenya's Directorate of Criminal Investigations saying her cause of death was strangulation.

Kenyan police launched a manhunt for Mutua's Ethiopian boyfriend -- Eskinder Hailemaryam Folie -- who is the main suspect in her murder and is alleged to have fled Kenya.

[mynewshq]

Family receives body of Ugandan Olympic athlete set on fire by her partner

The body of Ugandan Olympic athlete Rebecca Cheptegei who died after being set on fire by her partner in Kenya was received Friday by family and anti-femicide crusaders, ahead of her burial a day later. Cheptegei’s family met with dozens of activists Friday who had marched to the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital’s morgue in the western city of Eldoret while chanting anti-femicide slogans. She is the fourth female athlete to have been killed by her partner in Kenya in yet another case of gender-based violence in recent years. Viola Cheptoo, the founder of Tirop Angels - an organization that was formed in honour of athlete Agnes Tirop, who was stabbed to death in 2021, said stakeholders need to ensure this is the last death of an athlete due to gender-based violence. “We are here to say that enough is enough, we are tired of burying our sisters due to GBV,” she said. It was a somber mood at the morgue as athletes and family members viewed Cheptegei’s body which sustained 80% of burns after she was doused with gasoline by her partner Dickson Ndiema. Ndiema sustained 30% burns on his body and later succumbed. Ndiema and Cheptegei were said to have quarrelled over a piece of land that the athlete bought in Kenya, according to a report filed by the local chief. Cheptegei competed in the women’s marathon at the Paris Olympics less than a month before the attack. She finished in 44th place. Cheptegei’s father, Joseph, said that the body will make a brief stop at their home in the Endebess area before proceeding to Bukwo in eastern Uganda for a night vigil and burial on Saturday. “We are in the final part of giving my daughter the last respect,” a visibly distraught Joseph said. He told reporters last week that Ndiema was stalking and threatening Cheptegei and the family had informed police. Kenya’s high rates of violence against women have prompted marches by ordinary citizens in towns and cities this year. Four in 10 women or an estimated 41% of dating or married Kenyan women have experienced physical or sexual violence perpetrated by their current or most recent partner, according to the Kenya Demographic and Health Survey 2022. Read the full article

[ejesgistnews]

Ugandan Olympian Rebecca Cheptegei Dies After Being Set Ablaze by Boyfriend.       Ugandan Olympian Rebecca Cheptegei has died in Kenya, four days after her boyfriend allegedly set her on fire. The Ugandan athletics community confirmed her death on Thursday.   “We have learned of the tragic passing of our Olympic athlete Rebecca Cheptegei following a brutal attack by her boyfriend,” Donald Rukare, president of the Uganda Olympic Committee, posted on X. “This senseless act has taken away a great athlete. Her legacy will endure.   Read Also: 70-Year-Old British Fugitive Andrew Wynne Explains Why He Won’t Honour Police Invitation   According to police, Cheptegei’s partner, Dickson Ndiema Marangach, allegedly doused her with petrol and ignited the flames at her home in Endebess, Trans-Nzoia County, on Sunday. The attack occurred shortly after the 33-year-old competed in the marathon at the Paris Olympics, where she finished 44th.   Read Also : Breaking: NEC Sets September 9 Deadline for Four States to Submit State Police Reports   Cheptegei sustained burns covering 80 percent of her body and had been struggling for her life at the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital in Kenya. “All her organs failed last night,” a medic at the facility told AFP on Thursday.   Reports indicate that one of Cheptegei’s daughters witnessed the assault. According to Kenya’s The Standard, the child tried to flee to get help but was kicked by Marangach. A neighbor attempted to extinguish the flames with water but was unsuccessful.   Marangach also suffered burns to 30 percent of his body during the incident.   The Uganda Athletics Federation expressed profound sadness over Cheptegei’s death and condemned the violence. “We call for justice,” the federation stated on X. “May her soul rest in peace.”   This incident highlights the ongoing issue of domestic violence in Kenya, which was previously underscored by the deaths of Kenyan-born athlete Damaris Mutua and record-breaking runner Agnes Tirop. The latest figures from the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics indicate that 34 percent of women in Kenya have experienced physical violence since the age of 15.

[notiziariofinanziario]

La maratoneta ugandese Rebecca Cheptegei è morta a causa delle gravi ustioni riportate dopo che il suo fidanzato le aveva dato fuoco

Rebecca Cheptegei, che ha gareggiato nella maratona a Parigi 2024, è morta dopo essere stata ricoverata in terapia intensiva in un ospedale di Eldoret, cittadina del Kenya occidentale, ricevendo cure per ustioni sul 75% del corpo. Secondo un rapporto della polizia, il compagno keniano dell'atleta, Dickson Ndiema Marangach, è entrato nella sua casa nella città di Endebess, nella contea di Trans, domenica intorno alle 14, mentre l'atleta e i suoi figli erano a messa. Al loro ritorno, Dickson "ha versato benzina su Rebecca prima di appiccare il fuoco", precisa il rapporto, aggiungendo che anche l'uomo è rimasto ustionato dalle fiamme. In Kenya, e non solo, la chiamano 'la maledizione di Eldoret'. Troppe tragedie e troppi lutti hanno contrassegnato la storia della città della Rift Valley dove si allenano tutti i più forti fondisti del mondo, una catena di morti alla quale oggi si è aggiunta quella della maratoneta ugandese. A febbraio di quest'anno erano morti in un incidente stradale il primatista mondiale della maratona, il keniano Kelvin Kiptum, e il suo allenatore Gervais Hakizimana, mentre la notte di Capodanno era stato accoltellato a morte un altro atleta dell'Uganda, Benjamin Kiplagat. Nell'aprile 2022, il corpo di un'atleta bahreinita di origine keniana, Damaris Mutua, era stato ritrovato a Iten, e il suo compagno venne accusato di omicidio. Tre anni fa, la campionessa keniana Agnes Tirop era stata trovata morta nella sua casa a Iten, vicino Eldoret, col marito sospettato dell'omicidio. Nel 2008 invece era morto,per un incidente su un mezzo militare, sulla strada per Eldoret, un altro Kipkorir, bronzo ad Atlanta '96 nei 1.500. Non a Eldoret, ma nel distretto di Nyandarua, quindi a circa 200 km di distanza, c'era invece stato nel 2011 il suicidio di Samuel Wanjiru, oro olimpico della maratona di Pechino 2008, gettatosi dal balcone di casa. Read the full article

[allthenewsworld]

The Ugandan athlete Rebecca Cheptegei, who competed at this summer's Olympic Games in Paris, is in a critical condition in a Kenyan hospital.

The 33-year-old marathon runner has suffered serious burns after allegedly being doused with petrol and set on fire by a former boyfriend.

Cheptegei was attacked at her home in western Kenya where she'd been training.

It comes just months after the record-breaking long-distance runner Agnes Tirop was found stabbed to death in the same town.

(📸 Uganda Athletics Federation, X, Getty Images)

#athletics #allthenews

[news2024news]

Death in the Heartlands Revisits Murder of World Record-Holder Agnes Tirop http://dlvr.it/TB39Fs

[atletasudando]

Fuerte movida desde Kenia contra la violencia de género

Fuente: Olympics.com El asesinato de Agnes Tirop apenas unas semanas después de que batiera un récord mundial conmocionó a la comunidad del atletismo. En el Día Internacional para la Eliminación de la Violencia contra la Mujer, Olympics.com analiza el trabajo de Tirop's Angels, una ONG que lucha contra la violencia de género en Kenia y más allá. El 12 de septiembre de 2021, Agenes Tirop estableció un nuevo récord mundial femenino de carrera en ruta de 10 km en Herzogenaurach, Alemania. Apenas cinco semanas después, fue asesinada en su casa de Iten, Kenia, y su marido, Ibrahim Rotich, actualmente está siendo juzgado acusado de su asesinato. Tirop había crecido en Kenia, era la séptima de 10 hermanos, y había demostrado una aptitud temprana para el atletismo que surgió de los días en que corría cinco kilómetros hacia y desde la escuela con su hermano Martin. Cuando todavía estaba en la escuela secundaria, fue identificada como alguien con el talento para llegar a lo más alto de su deporte. Fue en ese momento que conoció a su futuro marido, Rotich, quien le ofreció convertirse en su entrenador. Desde fuera, la vida de Tirop parecía un cuento de hadas deportivo mientras iba viento en popa, ganando el bronce en los 10.000 m tanto en el Campeonato Mundial de Atletismo de 2017 en Londres como en el siguiente Campeonato Mundial en Doha en 2019, y quedo cuarta en la carrera de 5.000 m en los Juegos Olímpicos de Tokio. Pocos conocían los detalles de su vida en casa y su tumultuosa y tóxica relación con su marido, que mantuvo en secreto para sus amigos y compañeros de entrenamiento. La hermana de Tirop dijo al tribunal del juicio contra Rotich en noviembre de 2023 que éste había agredido físicamente a Agnes en muchas ocasiones. Él niega los cargos. Su muerte pocos días después sacudió el mundo del atletismo hasta lo más profundo. Las acusaciones posteriores sobre la naturaleza abusiva de su matrimonio abrieron los ojos de muchas personas a un problema que afecta a muchas atletas jóvenes en Kenia: la violencia de género. En el funeral de Tirop, que tuvo lugar en el que habría sido su cumpleaños número 26, sus seres queridos y familiares lloraron juntos la muerte de la joven atleta. Pero cuando su amiga y compañera corredora de élite Violah Lagat habló en honor a Tirop, las palabras que usó se convirtieron en un llamado a las atletas en Kenia, quienes eran conscientes de que, en lugar de ser un incidente aislado, la situación de Tirop era sólo un ejemplo de un problema muy arraigado en la nación africana. “Hoy estoy aquí por una cuestión: esta cuestión de la violencia de género”, dijo Lagat a la multitud reunida. “Estoy aquí porque hay que hacer algo. Y hay que hacerlo ahora, no mañana, ni cualquier otro día, tiene que empezar hoy. Estamos aquí porque estamos dando descanso a nuestra hermana pero también estamos aquí para alzar la voz. Necesitamos ser escuchadas como mujeres, necesitamos que la gente entienda que no somos herramientas, que no somos propiedad de nadie”. “Hombres, comprendan esto, somos deportistas pero también somos hijos de alguien. Por favor respétanos, por favor ámanos, por favor valora nuestro arduo trabajo... “Si no vas a hacer nada por mí, por mi hermana, por mi madre y por la generación venidera, por favor vete a casa”. El irlandés Colm O'Connell es conocido como el “padrino del running keniano” y el trabajo que ha realizado en el país desde que llegó al Valle del Rift como misionero católico en 1976 ha resultado en que cuatro de sus pupilos ganen medallas de oro olímpicas – David Rudisha , dos veces medallista de oro olímpica en 800 metros en Londres 2012 y Río 2016; Brimin Kipruto (Pekín 2008) y Matthew Birir (Barcelona 1992) en los 3.000 metros con obstáculos masculino; y Vivian Cheruiyot en los 5.000 m femeninos de Río 2016. A finales de la década de 1980, el hermano O'Connell creó sus primeros grupos de corredores exclusivamente femeninos en Kenia y ahora cuenta con 120 campos de entrenamiento en todo el país. Habló en un documental reciente de Bloomberg  sobre cómo los hombres comenzaron a visitar los campos de entrenamiento en busca de corredoras jóvenes y vulnerables a quienes apuntar para su propio beneficio personal. "Hay hombres, si se me permite usar la frase 'al acecho', que están dispuestos a sacar provecho de los esfuerzos y energías de otra persona", dijo. “Son oportunistas. Ven esto como una manera de mejorarse a sí mismos, como una manera de seguir adelante en la vida. Cuando te conviertes en una persona exitosa, eres un blanco fácil”. Por lo general, estos hombres vendrían con una propuesta para convertirse en el entrenador del atleta, ofreciendo necesidades como comida, refugio o equipo para correr. Como explicó Joan Chelimo , dos veces campeona del medio maratón de Boston : “Se están aprovechando de muchas de las corredoras que sufren abusos por parte de sus entrenadores, primero porque son jóvenes, segundo porque no conocen sus derechos y los entrenadores intentan manipularlas, dándoles tal vez un par de zapatos o conectándolos con agentes. Recuerde, estas chicas provienen de entornos muy humildes". Poco después del funeral de Tirop, Lagat, Chelimo y otros amigos de la comunidad atlética decidieron actuar. Estaban cansados ​​de las historias de abuso que habían escuchado de primera mano y de la falta de reacción de las autoridades y la sociedad. Así, junto con la familia de Agnes, fundaron la organización no gubernamental Tirop's Angels. La misión de Tirop's Angels es cambiar la sociedad desde dentro, empezando por educar a las jóvenes sobre la violencia de género.    "Vamos a los pueblos, vamos a campamentos de atletismo, también visitamos escuelas y, para cambiar cultura, tenemos que empezar por la generación joven", explica Chelimo sobre el amplio trabajo que los Ángeles del Tirop están haciendo en  intento por “erradicar la violencia de género”. “En el pasado, a la mayoría de las atletas mujeres les quitaban el dinero sus maridos. Ahora la cosa ha cambiado porque estamos haciendo que los agentes envíen el dinero a los deportistas y que ellos tengan sus propias cuentas bancarias.“Hoy en día, si una niña sufre abusos en Iten, llamarán a los ángeles de Tirop. Años atrás eso no hubiera sucedido”. "   Intentamos empoderarlas y también hablarles sobre qué es la violencia de género, en un nivel superficial porque no la entienden muy bien hasta que son un poco mayores", explicó Lagat en una entrevista con CGTN África . "Por eso queremos que entiendan de qué se trata y que detecten esos signos a tiempo para que no sean víctimas". El trabajo de la ONG no termina ahí. En este momento, los atletas están luchando para que se cambien las leyes en Kenia para aumentar el tiempo de cárcel para los perpetradores, y también tienen planes para establecer una línea directa de 24 horas, asesoramiento y servicios de atención médica para ayudar y apoyar a las víctimas de discriminación de género. Muchas otras atletas han formado parte de Tirop's Angels desde sus inicios o se han unido desde entonces, como Mary Keitany , Peres Jepchirchir , Brenda Jepleting y Caroline Chepkwony . También hay un número creciente de atletas masculinos que han mostrado su apoyo, incluido figuras como Haile Gebrselassie y Amos Kipruto . Los patrocinadores también se han tomado en serio la causa con el logotipo de Los Ángeles de Tirop que ahora se encuentra estampado en chalecos para correr que han usado personas como el actual campeón mundial de 100 y 200 m, Noah Lyles, corredores kenianos que rindieron homenaje a Tirop durante el Maratón de Nueva York de 2021 , y En marzo de 2023, más de 1.000 atletas participaron en la carrera inaugural en memoria de Agnes Tirop en Kenia. Pero el trabajo de los Ángeles de Tirop está lejos de terminar mientras continúan buscando formas de luchar contra la violencia de género en África y en todo el mundo. "Todavía tenemos que lograr nuestro objetivo (de erradicar la violencia de género) y todavía tenemos un largo camino por recorrer, pero lo lograremos", dijo Lagat en un discurso antes de la Memorial Race de este año. "Estamos apenas en la primera fase de nuestra batalla contra la violencia de género (VBG)... debemos seguir insistiendo".   Read the full article

[diarioelpepazo]

Un error de medición le arrebata el récord del mundo a la keniana Agnes Ngetich en los 10 km de Transylvania PALOMA PETEIRA La atleta keniana Agnes Ngetich se ha quedado sin los dosrécords mundiales que había registrado en los 10 km de Transylvania en Brasov (Rumanía) el pasado 10 de septiembre. World Athletics ha descubierto que se había medido mal el circuito, el cual medía 25 metros menos de los 10 km estipulados, según ha anunciado Brasov Running Festival vía Facebook. Ngetich había cruzado la línea de meta parando el crono en 29:24 minutos, mientras que los 5 km los había hecho en 14:25. Bajaba cuatro segundos la marca en distancia corta femenina de la etíope Senbere Teferi y en 37 el de la asesinada Agnes Tirop en los 10 km. Pese a que no lograba batir los récords absolutos de carreras mixtas, 14:19 y 20:38, terminó la carrera sin liebres masculinas ni femeninas. "Se cometió un error por factores que escapaban a nuestro control y lo asumimos como equipo y los gestionaremos internamente, con dignidad y respeto al deporte que tanto amamos. Entendemos que un error como este queda muy por debajo del nivel de nuestro evento, y que tomaremos las medidas para que no se vuelva a repetir", explicaba la organización del evento a través de sus redes sociales. La keniana hubiese conseguido el récord igualmente, ya que los 37 segundos de margen eran más que suficientes para recorrer los 25 metros que le faltaban al circuito. De cualquier forma, la realidad es que Agnes Ngetich se ha quedado sin récord en Brasov y tendrá que conformarse con el bronce que se colgó en febrero en el Mundial de Cross de Bathurst y la sexta posición de los 10.000 m del Mundial de atletismo celebrado en Budapest. Esta no es la primera vez que se da un caso como este. Otro error de medición arrebató el récord que registró la etíope Yalemzerf Yehualaw en la media maratón de Antrim Coast (Irlanda del Norte) hace dos años. Lo mismo ocurrió con el récord de Europa de 10 km en ruta que batió Eilish McColgan en la Great Scottish Run de Glasgow en 2022. Para recibir en tu celular esta y otras informaciones, únete a nuestras redes sociales, síguenos en Instagram, Twitter y Facebook como @DiarioElPepazo El Pepazo/Marca

[xtruss]

The Japanese, French, British, and Americans have sent runners to train in Iten. “Everybody runs here,” an athlete said.Illustration by Cristiana Couciero; Source photographs from Getty

Why Were Two Female Running Champions Killed in Kenya 🇰🇪?

Iten, a small town in the Great Rift Valley, Elgeyo-Marakwet County, Republic of Kenya became the long-distance-running capital of the world. Then, within a span of six months, two élite athletes were found dead.

— By Alexis Okeowo | April 10, 2023

When Agnes Tirop was eleven, she was already as fast as athletes twice her age. “She loved running, and she shined,” her brother Martin told me. Tirop, who was born in 1995, was small-boned and delicate-featured, with cropped hair. Even as a child, she was self-possessed, with a singular focus on improving her speed. She grew up in the Kenyan village of Nandi, in the Great Rift Valley, a four-thousand-mile-long volcanic trench of steep escarpments, green hills, and soda lakes that is visible from space. She came from a big family. Her father, Vincent, had been a long-distance runner in his youth—as had her grandfather—but Vincent found it difficult to earn a living from the sport. Instead, each day he bought milk from local farmers and took it by bicycle to sell at the market in the city of Eldoret, twenty-nine miles away. The family waited, sometimes until midnight, for him to bring home food for them to eat. Despite having little money, Vincent saved five litres of milk every week for his children, so that they would have the nutrition they needed in order to train. “We were dirt poor,” Martin said. “We started running because of poverty.”

Several of the children showed an early aptitude for the sport, but it was clear that Tirop was special. She began training in primary school, running barefoot on the roads in her village. Joan Chelimo, who trained with Tirop, said that she always wanted to put on bouncy Kalenjin music before practice. “She was very young, and she was beating senior athletes,” Chelimo said. At fifteen, Tirop won the five-thousand-metre race at a national junior competition. Later that year, she flew to South Africa for an international junior race, and came in second. When she returned home, her family threw her a party, serving meat and rice and playing music for hours. “It was her first time out of the country, and we felt very happy and proud,” Vincent said. Tirop soon started giving some of her winnings to her family, so that they could build a house. “She paid for my school fees—and I’m older than her!” Martin said.

The Great Rift Valley in Kenya—and particularly a small town called Iten, two hours from Nandi—has become, by some measures, the running capital of the world. Iten, like many villages in the area, sits in the mountains, almost eight thousand feet above sea level, but you can descend four thousand feet into the valley by car within half an hour. Athletes there can “live high and train low,” spending their non-training days at altitude so that their lungs become more efficient but running at a lower elevation, where the air is more oxygen-rich. Kenya has won more élite marathons than any other country in the past twenty years, and many of its winners have come from the Great Rift Valley. After Ibrahim Hussein, who was from Iten, became the first African to win the New York City Marathon, in 1987, the town’s reputation was cemented. A sign above the main road welcomes visitors to the “home of champions.” Kenya’s best athletes now train in the area, including the world’s most decorated living marathoner, Eliud Kipchoge. The Japanese, French, British, and Americans have sent runners to train there. “Iten is the nerve center,” Vincent Onywera, who teaches exercise and sports science at Kenya College of Accountancy University, in Nairobi, told me.

When Tirop was in secondary school, she met a man named Ibrahim Rotich, who was about fifteen years older. Rotich was a big, charming man, and he offered to manage and coach Tirop. Tirop already had a coach, and Rotich seemed, to Tirop’s family, to have little formal experience, but Tirop accepted his offer. Tirop’s sisters later observed Rotich driving her around, acting like her coach. Rotich stated recently that he “invested heavily” in preparing Tirop to “be the champion she was by supporting her athletics career and being by her side during training as her assistant and footing her medical bills.” Daisy Jepkemei, Tirop’s childhood best friend, told me that she was impressed by Rotich’s dedication: “He was encouraging.” In 2014, Tirop won the African Cross Country Championship, in Uganda. The next year, she won the World Athletics Cross Country Championships, in China—the youngest winner of that race in thirty years. “I had no fear,” she said, at the time. “I was just trying to run my own race.”

Tirop soon dropped out of school. Her parents protested, suspecting that Rotich was to blame. Tirop loved studying languages, especially Kiswahili. “She was almost finished with secondary school,” Martin told me. The family complained to local authorities that she had left school without their permission, but Rotich and Tirop fled town, eventually moving to Iten. Nahashon Kibon, Tirop’s first coach, warned her about becoming romantically involved with Rotich; this upset Tirop, and she and Kibon went their separate ways. “She was not happy with me,” he said. She began running at a training camp in Iten. In 2016, she and Rotich married in secret, according to court documents. Rotich discouraged her from talking to her parents. Martha Akello, another runner, who lived next door to the couple in Iten, was disturbed by Rotich’s controlling behavior. She told me that the couple shared a phone. “We were neighbors, but he did not permit her to mingle with the other ladies,” she said. “He had to accompany her to training. It’s like she was living in prison.”

In mid-2017, Tirop told Akello that she was pregnant. She seemed happy, and asked Akello for advice on how to balance motherhood with her running career. That fall, Akello learned that she was also pregnant. She was eager to share the news with Tirop, but when they met, Akello recalled, Tirop told her, “Unfortunately, I’m not pregnant anymore.” According to Akello, Tirop said that she had wanted to keep the baby, but that Rotich, who depended on her earnings for his income, had forced her to get an abortion. (Tirop’s other friends and family said that they had no knowledge of her pregnancy.) She told Akello that she regretted agreeing to the procedure and wished that Akello had been around when it happened. (A lawyer representing Rotich did not respond to repeated requests for comment; he hung up on me when I reached him by phone, and then blocked me.)

Tirop’s friends and family began to worry that she was falling into a pattern that was disturbingly common among female runners in Iten. “The husbands expect them to bring home money,” Njeri Migwi, the executive director of Usikimye, an advocacy group that focusses on gender-based violence, told me. “The minute they want certain levels of independence, the men abuse them.” Around 2018, Tirop reconnected with her family. She had Martin work as her pacemaker. Rotich was always around. “I didn’t have any power to separate them,” Martin said.

One morning last October, I went to visit Brother Colm O’Connell, a missionary and a track coach from Ireland who has lived for five decades in a cottage at a Catholic school in Iten. O’Connell, who is portly, with white sideburns, first came to Kenya in 1976, to teach geography, but ended up coaching track at the school full time. Eventually, he started training athletes hoping to run professionally, and he has become one of the most celebrated coaches in the region. O’Connell occasionally trains foreign athletes, but he focusses primarily on local runners. He had coached David Rudisha, a two-time Olympic gold medallist and two-time world champion. It had rained the night before I visited, and the air was cool and wet. A small group of runners were gathering near O’Connell’s home, stretching and jogging in place. “Have you guys got water, or are you O.K.?” O’Connell shouted. No one wanted water. He told me, “I don’t want them complaining down in the valley.”

Every morning in Iten, in the early hours, I saw people running: Kenyans and foreigners, men and women, with children not far behind. Some wore sneakers; others ran in sandals. “Everybody runs here,” Viola Cheptoo, an Olympic distance runner, told me. One of the people training with O’Connell was from the United Kingdom. “He decided to jump in the deep end,” O’Connell said. Another was a Kenyan American who ran for the University of Alabama. One of O’Connell’s female runners also served in the military and had just been called back to her barracks. Several of the athletes had represented Kenya in major international competitions. The runners headed down the road, and O’Connell and I followed in his pickup truck. We drove past a market in a grassy field, then dipped into the valley, which is a mile deep and filled with golden fields of ripening maize.

Running is Kenya’s most well-known pastime. Some of this national affinity might have biological roots. People in the Kalenjin ethnic group, and particularly those in the Nandi subgroup, who live in the Great Rift Valley, have developed—likely as a result of centuries at high elevation—deeper-than-average lung capacities, bigger and more numerous red blood cells (which transport oxygen to muscles), and lower body masses. Onywera told me that he has found similar traits in Ethiopian communities that also live in the Rift Valley. Many Kenyans consume a milk-rich diet, which is helpful in childhood development. “They also have psychological readiness—the mental belief that they are the best,” Onywera said. The Kalenjin have a long tradition of competing in running, wrestling, and tug-of-war. In the nineteen-twenties, British missionaries encouraged Kalenjin men to join colonial running competitions as a way of distracting them from cattle raiding, political unrest, and potential rebellion. “They wanted to get them to focus on athletics,” Lorna Kimaiyo, a former runner who is now writing a dissertation on the history of Kenyan female runners, told me. The King’s African Rifles, a brutal colonial regiment that put down the Mau Mau rebellion, recruited Kalenjin men to compete in its athletic competitions.

Kenya won its first Olympic medal in track in 1964, the year after it gained independence from Britain. At that time, there was no official running league in Kenya; the telecommunications agency, the post office, the rail and port authorities, and the national airline operated leagues for their employees. Early talents came out of the military. (The Kenya Defense Forces still allows soldiers to take leave in order to race.) In the seventies, American universities began recruiting Kenyan runners, expanding access to formal training. Kenya won four Olympic gold medals in Seoul in 1988; three of the medallists were attending college in the United States. Shoe companies and talent agencies began offering sponsorships and contracts, making the sport more lucrative. Running was soon seen as the best way out of poverty in Kenya.

Young Kenyans who showed promise started coming to Iten to find coaches who would train them. “You have nothing else to do except run,” Joan Jepkorir, an athlete from Iten, told me. Rudisha, who holds the world record in the eight-hundred-metre, moved to Iten in high school. He told me, “Even the girls were better than me.” Training centers and guesthouses—many started by former champions—sprang up. “All of us were farmers, and all of a sudden we have people coming in with really huge amounts of money, winning races, getting millions,” Jepkorir said. In a reversal of colonial dynamics, about half the British national team now trains at the High-Altitude Training Center, a vast complex started by a Kalenjin Olympian. Programs are competitive. O’Connell told me, “Out of almost fifty in our youth group, only about ten are really going to make it to the top and make a living out of the sport.” Some choose to run for other countries instead. Some might take up other endurance sports, like cycling; in 1998, Kenya sent a skier, who first trained as a runner, to the Winter Olympics.

At first, only men ran competitively. But in 1984 the first Olympic women’s marathon was held in Los Angeles. “Kenyan women started to dominate in the nineties, when they were being recruited by American universities,” Kimaiyo said. Tegla Loroupe, a woman from the Great Rift Valley, won the New York marathon in 1994. But, when Kenyan women began to bring home significant prize money, they got a mixed reception. “They were not being celebrated in the Kalenjin community because of our patriarchal culture,” Kimaiyo said. Some men resented their wives’ independence. As O’Connell put it, “The lady is the breadwinner, the lady is the one who is known.” Still, young women began coming to Iten in the hope of finding success. “Most of the athletes in Kenya, they finish their education possibly at the primary or high-school level, and they have nothing, so they say, ‘I want to run,’ ” Jepkorir told me. “You pack your bags. You come to Iten. Your parents maybe give you just a hundred dollars to start your life. But you come to realize it’s not enough. . . . You say, ‘Shit, I’m broke. What do I do?’ That is when the predators come.”

In September, 2021, Tirop and a group of Kenyan runners travelled to the thousand-year-old German village of Herzogenaurach, in the Bavarian countryside. Herzogenaurach was the home town of the Dassler brothers, who, after a feud, founded the rival sneaker companies Adidas and Puma. Tirop was there to compete in the Adizero: Road to Records, organized by Adidas. By this time, she was one of the most successful runners in Kenya. In August, Tirop had competed in the five-thousand-metre race, at the Olympics in Tokyo, and taken fourth place. In Herzogenaurach, she competed in the ten-thousand-metre and finished in an astonishing thirty minutes and one second. She had broken the world record. At the end, Tirop—covered in sweat and wrapped in a huge Kenyan flag—said, “I’m so happy.”

Before the trip, Tirop had asked Martin to meet her and their sister Eve on the road between Eldoret and Iten. Tirop told her siblings that she wanted to leave Rotich. She said that he had been spending her money at bars while she was away, and that she was tired of it. He had become convinced that Tirop was having an affair, perhaps with a childhood friend who was now an Olympian. (The friend denied that this was so, but said that Rotich had grown paranoid about his relationship with Tirop, and was harassing him.) Soon Rotich arrived in a rage, with two police officers. Rotich claimed that Tirop had stolen the car, and the family went to the police station to settle the matter. The officers realized who Tirop was, Martin said, and let her go. But, before they left, he recalled, a female officer warned her to be “very careful,” because Rotich seemed dangerous.

Tirop went to stay with her parents. She told her siblings that Rotich had hit her. She told Martin that he had threatened to burn the house down if she left him. She had told others about Rotich’s behavior, too. In 2021, she told Milcah Chemos, an athletes’ representative from Athletics Kenya, which oversees the sport in the country, that Rotich had abused her. Chemos told me that she spoke to Tirop and Rotich. “She talked about the abuse, but at first she told me, ‘Let me finish my competition first,’ ” Chemos said. “I told him not to do anything and wait for her to finish her competition. Then we would talk.” Chemos seemed focussed on reconciling the couple, and on making sure that Tirop’s training was not interrupted. Chemos insisted that she “didn’t know the story fully,” and that Tirop hadn’t seemed ready to leave Rotich at the time. But Cheptoo, the Olympic distance runner, told me, “Every single time victims go to Athletics Kenya, they tell them to go sort out your own things in private, don’t put your business out there.” (A co-opted member of Athletics Kenya’s executive committee said that he wasn’t aware of Tirop’s story, but contested the idea that the organization turns a blind eye to such reports. He said that Athletics Kenya is now investigating issues of abuse involving its athletes. When The New Yorker reached out to further clarify the organization’s position, it did not respond.)

Before her trip to Herzogenaurach, Tirop went back to Iten to resume her training. She moved into a guesthouse at the training camp. “The first thing was to secure her,” Joseph Cheromei, who managed the camp, told me. “There was a competition coming up.” Cheromei said that he often saw his female runners being exploited by their partners. “I see it every day now,” he said. “The athletes win a race, the man needs to own the earnings, the woman refuses, and the problem arises. It affects the ladies’ performance.” He tried to help keep the peace: “I go and reconcile them.” In October, after the race in Germany, Rotich came to the camp, and Tirop agreed to go back home with him. Eve went with them, and spent the night in their spare room.

The next day, Rotich told Eve that he and Tirop were going to Nairobi for a competition. Eve had no choice but to leave. Later that day, though, she couldn’t reach Tirop. Rotich picked up the phone and told Eve that she was not around. The next morning, Tirop was found stabbed and beaten to death in her home. Rotich had fled, leaving a note, reportedly confessing to the crime and saying that the relationship had been “full of fights.” Police have said that they found a knife and a club at the scene. Rotich later admitted in an affidavit to killing Tirop, but pleaded not guilty to her murder, claiming that he was provoked into killing her because he believed she was having an affair with her childhood friend: “My late wife received a call which she put on speakerphone and had a very demeaning conversation about me with her lover which took me to the edge.” (The childhood friend denied that this call took place, saying that he stopped speaking with Tirop because of Rotich’s harassment.) After the killing, Rotich claimed that he “temporarily lost my mind and I kept driving aimlessly until I got [to] Mombasa.” He was arrested the day after Tirop’s body was found. According to Tirop’s family and their lawyer, Rotich was listed as the owner of several of the couple’s properties. (The lawyer would not make the deeds public because they have not yet been introduced in court.) Tirop’s funeral was held on October 23rd, and was attended by more than a thousand people, including prominent athletes and Kenyan politicians. It would have been her twenty-sixth birthday.

Last fall, I visited the home that Tirop had shared with Rotich, a gray brick house with mauve trim and lime-green doors. A shed outside held her exercise equipment. “Her shoes are still here,” Martin, who now lives there, told me. I went to her training camp. Cheromei was welcoming a group of Italian athletes; he has learned several European languages in order to work with the flood of international runners. Afterward, he took me on a tour, with Tirop’s friend and fellow-runner Mary Keitany. Tirop’s room at the camp was quiet, with a single bed under mosquito netting. “In America, when you have a boyfriend he can kill you or no?” she asked. I told her that there were laws that try to prevent this, but that domestic violence was still one of the leading causes of women being killed in the United States. “Like here in Kenya?” Keitany asked, surprised.

Tirop’s abuse seemed to be an open secret. But Tirop’s friends said that, by the time she competed in the Olympics, they had started to see a difference in her. She was wearing acrylic nails and red lipstick and plaiting her hair. She seemed to be gathering the confidence to finally leave Rotich. Ten days before her body was found, Tirop placed second at a race in Switzerland. Afterward, she had tea with some of the other athletes in Geneva. She asked Jepkorir why it was so much easier to divorce in Europe, and Jepkorir said that it was because women had more independence. “Then she said, ‘I wish divorcing was easier in Kenya,’ ” Jepkorir told me. “I should have said something then.”

When I arrived in Iten, I met up with several of Tirop’s friends, most of whom were current runners. The women greeted one another happily, and asked after Chelimo’s sister, who was pregnant. “When are we going to have your baby shower?” Chelimo teased Jepkorir. Keitany was travelling to New York the following week to be honored for winning the New York marathon four times. The talk turned to Tirop. “She had a good spirit,” Keitany said. After Tirop’s death, her friends had started a WhatsApp group to express their pain, and to discuss what they could do to prevent further violence. Eventually, they formed an organization called Tirop’s Angels, which aims to raise awareness about gender-based violence in Iten, and to offer resources for fighting it. “We want to see a change in this country, especially in our own communities,” Cheptoo told me.

One in three women in Kenya has experienced gender-based violence, according to a survey released this year by the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics. Teen pregnancy and early marriage are common, and when women marry they traditionally have little power in the household; women own less than two per cent of the country’s property in their names alone, the Kenya Land Alliance notes. Domestic violence is seen as a minor offense. “We still have cases of police stations turning away victims,” Sarah Ochwada, a lawyer who handles domestic-violence cases involving athletes, told me in an e-mail. “Because communities view domestic disputes as family issues they try to convince victims to withdraw criminal complaints.”

Many female runners come to Iten in search of an opportunity, and men, often with few real qualifications, offer to coach them. “The trend is that these young girls get into ‘relationships’ with older athletes or trainers who offer them protection against other predators,” Ochwada said. “But over time, it’s those same protectors who begin to abuse them.” When female athletes begin to make money, their male partners control their winnings. Jepkorir, who works for a company that manages athletes, told me that husbands often have control of female runners’ bank accounts. “This is normal to them,” she said. Cheptoo has seen her teammates crying over the issue at races. “They say, ‘My husband is yelling at me for not winning the race, he’s threatening he’ll beat me up when I get home.’ ” When women push back, partners lash out. “I don’t think there’s any woman who goes and asks for her money, and then nothing happens,” Cheptoo said.

Tirop’s Angels holds events at training camps, schools, and churches to raise awareness about domestic violence. The group has helped women leave abusive relationships and find housing. It has connected them with counsellors, provided them with food and clothing, and given them running shoes so that they can continue training. I went with members of Tirop’s Angels to visit a girl they were working with who had fled her home after being abused by her father. They were raising money to pay for her food, medicine, and school fees. She told me, “I’m O.K. now. I’m back in school.”

In October, 2021, the night before Tirop’s death, a twenty-seven-year-old runner named Edith Muthoni, who lived east of Nairobi, was killed; her throat was slit with a machete. In 2014, Lucy Kabuu, another runner, was sued by her ex-husband for control of half of her properties. In the Kenyan newspaper the Daily Nation, Kabuu has argued that although some of the properties are in his name, she bought them all with her winnings; she has also accused him of stealing from her bank accounts and assaulting her. (Kabuu’s ex-husband has denied the allegations, according to the Daily Nation, and argued that he contributed to the acquisition and development of several pieces of land. The case is ongoing.) This past February, the Olympic gold medallist Vivian Cheruiyot told another Kenyan paper, the Standard, that her husband, Moses Kiplagat, had taken control of her properties, including gas stations and farmland, and that, when she objected, he abused her physically and psychologically. (Kiplagat has denied the allegations, the Standard reported, and claimed that Cheruiyot was facing undisclosed social challenges.)

Many of Tirop’s friends also knew another runner, Damaris Mutua, who had a high forehead and a bright smile, and grew up in a town south of Nairobi. “She loved to talk, and she loved gospel music,” her sister Francisca told me. Mutua began running in primary school, and in 2010 she won a bronze medal for Kenya in the thousand-metre race at the Youth Olympics in Singapore. In 2022, Mutua moved to Iten to train. Later that year, she won second place in the Arab Cross Country Championships in Bahrain, and third place at the Luanda half marathon in Angola. When she returned from Luanda, she was in high spirits. Francisca recalled her saying, “I’ll be bringing back gold next time.”

When Mutua moved to Iten, she stayed with Akello, Tirop’s friend, whom she had met at races in Morocco and France. The women hiked, watched movies, and shared clothes like sisters. “We used to plan,” Akello said. “We had good goals—‘One day we need to run in New York, we need to run in Frankfurt, run in London.’ ” Mutua had a husband named Felix Mwendwa Ngila, and they had a son, who was seven. Ngila worked as a security guard in Qatar, and Mutua rarely saw him. But, after a few months of living with Akello, Mutua told her that she was moving out because her husband was coming to visit. “I said, ‘No problem,’ ” Akello told me. “But she lied to me.”

In fact, Mutua wanted to move in with an Ethiopian runner named Eskinder Hailemaryam Folie, with whom she was having an affair. Folie was tall, with a narrow face and short curls. Jepkorir, who knew him as a fellow-runner, told me that he seemed like a “nice guy.” Mutua and Folie had first met in 2021, at a bar, watching the Boston Marathon. Saleh Kiprotich, Folie’s close friend, frequently visited him and Mutua at their home, where Folie cooked Ethiopian food. When Mutua travelled, Folie sometimes took care of her son.

But over time, according to Kiprotich, Folie became worried that Mutua was going to cheat on him. He would monitor her movements and ask Kiprotich to run errands for her so that she wouldn’t have to leave the house. “He was so insecure and jealous,” Kiprotich said. Folie eventually forbade Kiprotich and other male friends to visit the house when he wasn’t there. In April, 2022, Mutua saw her husband during a layover in Qatar, which angered Folie. He told Kiprotich that he had spent money on Mutua for her gear, her training, and her son, but, now that she was winning races, she seemed less interested in him. “Men identify a lady who can run, then do everything for her, expecting that, when the lady becomes a star, he will be the one controlling the money,” Kiprotich told me.

Later in April, Mutua’s body was found on the bed in Folie’s home. She had been strangled. According to the police, Folie confessed to a friend that he had killed her, then went into hiding, likely in Ethiopia. He is wanted for arrest. A week after the killing, Kiprotich said, he and Folie spoke on the phone, and Folie blamed the killing on Mutua’s alleged lover. “I told him, ‘You’re lying,’ ” Kiprotich said. “Then he started saying that the lady had so many boyfriends that she was dating him and dating other guys at the same time. He told me, ‘I’ve spent a lot of money on this girl.’ ” (Folie did not respond to repeated messages from me, and from Kiprotich on my behalf, asking for comment.) Ngila, Mutua’s husband, was devastated. “The act was so inhuman,” he said. Akello was still reeling from Tirop’s death when she learned of Mutua’s. “I should have never let her leave my place,” she said. It was the second murder of an élite female runner in Iten within six months.

Recently, I met with Christine Muyanga and Purity Kalekye Mutui, two of Mutua’s friends, at a runners’ lodge in Iten. “The problem is that, if you compare the athletic careers of women and men, the women have more of a chance to succeed,” Muyanga said. Women tended to take time off to get married or raise children, reducing the number of them who are competitive at any given time. For men who were struggling to distinguish themselves, athletic romantic partners could be a lifeline. “They want that money, and, at the end of the day, even your husband can kill you for it,” Muyanga said. Mutua’s death came just a few months after Tirop’s Angels was formed. Cheptoo told me, “We’d been trying so hard to protect our sisters out there and call for the murders to stop, and it felt like the message was just falling on deaf ears.” At the lodge, Muyanga and Mutui showed me photographs of their children, and said that they did not want them to become runners. “I tell the small athletes, ‘If you have violence in your marriage, you have to sit down and share with your friends,’ ” Mutui told me. “If you stay silent, it can kill you.”

The Saturday before I left Iten, Tirop’s Angels held an event for women in the area at a local primary school. It was sunny but chilly, and the lawn was full of girls and women. Tirop’s Angels put on loud Kalenjin music, and the audience, wrapped in kikoy blankets, got up and danced. The members of Tirop’s Angels passed out brochures explaining the warning signs of domestic violence. A female doctor urged mothers to tell someone if their children were being abused. A few runners spoke about the violence they had experienced in their homes. Then Cheptoo took the microphone. “I think everybody knows what happened to Agnes,” she said. “Most of us know that Agnes was killed by her husband. In our community, domestic fights are common. . . . Isn’t it important for us to be talking with our daughters?”

Kenyan authorities are still searching for Folie. Francisca, Mutua’s sister, told me, “We just want justice to be served.” Rotich is in custody, and recently requested a plea bargain to reduce the charge to manslaughter because, he said, he killed Tirop as a result of an “extreme provocation that left me no other option.” The prosecution has declined his request, and his next hearing is expected this month. Tirop’s family say that they have recovered some of the properties. “We need him to face judgment,” Martin told me.

But the justice system is not often friendly to victims of gender-based violence. I spoke to Andolo Munga, who works on criminal investigations for Iten and the surrounding area. He said that the Tirop and Mutua families had his sympathies, but he contested my use of the term “domestic violence” to describe the cases. He suggested that the motive in Mutua’s killing had been a “domestic misunderstanding.” He asked me if I was married, and how old I was. “You must be having either a man friend or boyfriend?” Munga said. “Do you want to say it is all a bed of roses?” He continued, “In both cases, nobody had reported that she is being mishandled by the boyfriend or the husband. . . . Why had they not even reported it to Athletics Kenya?” I said that Tirop had talked to someone at Athletics Kenya about her abuse, but that, in general, women were often afraid to report violence, for fear that they would not be taken seriously. Munga told me that women had no reason to fear the police. Many, he said, simply preferred not to press charges, or to use “alternative dispute resolution,” a constitutionally enshrined system that allows conflicts to be mediated by local elders rather than by the courts. (A.D.R. is also seen by critics as focussed primarily on reconciling couples, even when partners remain violent.) “We get official reports, you start investigating, then they come and withdraw and say they’re going for A.D.R.,” Munga said.

Njeri Migwi, the advocacy-group director, told me that, as long as gender-based violence was seen as normal, laws criminalizing it meant nothing. “At health centers, where are the posters?” she asked. “Where is the messaging around gender-based violence? Where do we tell people it’s not O.K., and what it is, and how it can look for different people? It needs to be out there at the community level, in schools, in our curriculums.” Tirop’s Angels has been pushing the government to establish safe houses for victims, and response teams that are separate from police departments. They want prosecutors and police officers to receive more training in dealing with women’s claims, and for Athletics Kenya to create more resources for athletes who report abuse. Until then, the burden falls on girls to avoid dangerous situations. The group is urging young female runners to be wary of romantic entanglements with coaches or trainers, and to maintain control of their money once they get married. “You have to pay yourself,” Mary Keitany said. “You have to know your rights.” Migwi told me that she was hopeful about change coming from grassroots work. “Women talk,” she said. “We’re taking charge of our own stories.”

After the Tirop’s Angels event, several women approached Cheptoo for her phone number. “It’s been really good to know that people, especially women, finally trust us,” she said. She watched the crowd talking on the lawn, drinking tea and eating bread. “When we started Tirop’s Angels, it was out of anger, and I needed answers as to why this happened,” she said. “I’m still angry, and I don’t have any answers.” ♦

[nordnews]

World record runner Agnes Tirop was controlled and exploited for several years by her coach and husband, who is suspected of murdering her, according to a number of people. Both h...

[beardedmrbean]

The former boyfriend of Ugandan Olympic athlete Rebecca Cheptegei, who killed her by setting her on fire, has himself died from burns sustained in the attack, a Kenyan hospital official has said.

Dickson Ndiema ambushed the marathon runner as she returned home from church more than a week ago. He then doused her with petrol and set her ablaze.

Local administrators said the two had been in conflict over a small piece of land in north-west Kenya, where Cheptegei lived and trained.

Ndiema died on Monday night at the intensive care unit, where according to the hospital, he had been admitted with burns on more than 40% of his body.

"He developed respiratory failure as a result of the severe airway burns and sepsis that led to his eventual death on Monday evening at 18:30 hours [15:30 GMT] despite life-saving measures," a press release from Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital said.

Cheptegei died last Thursday - four days after she was attacked. She suffered burns to more than 80% of her body.

I saw athlete on fire running towards me after attack, neighbour tells BBC

'Running for her family' - Olympian mourned after vicious attack

Neighbours said that on the day of the attack,they heard screams before Cheptegei came running towards them shouting for help.

Local media reported that Ndiema had sneaked into Cheptegei's home in western Kenya’s Trans Nzoia county with a five-litre jerry can full of petrol.

Some of the fuel he poured on Cheptegei splashed onto his own body, according to reports. As a result, Ndiema got caught in the fire after he set his former partner alight.

Ndiema was to face charges as police said they were treating Cheptegei's death as murder, with the former boyfriend named as the main suspect.

But now that Ndiema has died, the criminal case has been dropped and an inquest into the two deaths will be opened instead.

Both Ndiema and Cheptegei were admitted to Moi Hospital before their deaths.

Cheptegei's death shocked people across the world, with fellow Ugandans saying she was an inspiration to them.

The 33-year-old Olympian was the third female athlete to be killed in Kenya over the last three years. In each case, current or former romantic partners were named as the main suspects by police.

In 2021, world-record holder Agnes Tirop was stabbed to death and six months later Damaris Mutua was strangled.

"I don't wish bad things on anyone, but of course I would have loved for him to face the law as an example for others so that these attacks on women can stop," Beatrice Ayikoru, secretary-general of the Uganda Olympic Committee, told the Reuters news agency.

Some observers are saying that female athletes are becoming increasingly vulnerable.

"[This is] because they go against traditional gender norms where the woman is just in the kitchen and just cooking and taking care of kids. But now female athletes are becoming more independent, financially independent," Joan Chelimo, who co-founded Tirop’s Angels to help highlight the issue of violence against women.

Cheptegei was born on the Kenyan side of the Kenya-Uganda border, but chose to cross over and represent Uganda to chase her athletics dream when she did not get a breakthrough in Kenya.

When she first gotinto running, she joined the Uganda People’s Defence Forces in 2008 and rose to sergeant rank.

Her career included competing in this year's Paris Olympics. Although she came 44th in the marathon, people in her home area called her "champion".

She also won gold at the World Mountain and Trail Running Championships in Chiang Mai, Thailand, in 2022.

Cheptegei is set to be buried on Saturday at her ancestral home in Bukwo, Uganda.

Attacks on women have become a major concern in Kenya. In 2022 at least 34% of women said they had experienced physical violence, according to a national survey.

"We don't want this to happen to any other woman, whether an athlete or from the village, or a young girl," Rachel Kamweru, a spokesperson the the government's department for gender and affirmative action, told the BBC.

[the254hub]

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