PARIS –
Content warning: This story contains disturbing content.
The city of Paris wants to honour the late Ugandan Olympic runner Rebecca Cheptegei by naming a sports venue after her.
The proposal was announced by city mayor Anne Hidalgo on Friday and will be discussed by city officials in October.
Cheptegei died on Thursday at a Kenyan hospital where she was being treated after 80 per cent of her body was burned in an attack by her partner. She was 33.
Cheptegei competed in the women’s marathon at the Paris Olympics less than a month ago and finished 44th.
“Paris will not forget her and we will dedicate a sports venue to her, so that her memory and her story will remain among us, and help us carry even stronger the message of equality, which is a message carried by the Olympic and Paralympic Games,” Hidalgo said.
City hall said in a statement, “Paris joins its elected representatives in expressing its support for the family of the athlete, victim of a femicide a few weeks after her participation in the Olympic Games.”
Trans Nzoia County Police Commander Jeremiah ole Kosiom said this week that Cheptegei’s partner, Dickson Ndiema, bought a can of gasoline, poured it on her and set her ablaze during a disagreement last Sunday. Ndiema was also burned and was being treated at the same hospital.
Every 11 minutes on average, a woman or girl is killed by an intimate partner or family member somewhere in the world, according to figures from UN Women, the agency promoting gender equality, and the UN Office on Drugs and Crime.
“An emotional thought for Rebecca Cheptegei,” Hidalgo said. “She dazzled us here in Paris. We saw her — her beauty, her strength, her freedom — and it was in all likelihood her beauty, strength and freedom which were intolerable for the person who committed this murder,”
Four in 10 women or an estimated 41 per cent 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.