NAIROBI, Kenya – Ugandan Olympic athlete Rebecca Cheptegei has died in a Kenyan hospital where she was being treated after suffering burns to 80 percent of her body in an attack by her partner. She was 33 years old.

A hospital spokesman, Owen Menach, confirmed her death on Thursday. Cheptegei was being treated at the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital in Eldoret city.

Trans Nzoia County Police Commissioner Jeremiah ole Kosiom said on Monday that Cheptegei’s partner Dickson Ndiema bought a jerrycan of petrol during an argument on Sunday, poured it on her and set her on fire. Ndiema also suffered burns and was being treated at the same hospital.

Cheptegei’s parents said their daughter bought land in Trans Nzoia to be close to the county’s many sports training centres.

A report from the local chief states that the couple was heard arguing over the land on which the house was built before the fire broke out.

Peter Ogwang, Uganda’s minister of state for sports, said Kenyan authorities were investigating the killing, which has highlighted the violence faced by women in the East African country.

Nearly 34% of Kenyan girls and women aged 15 to 49 were victims of physical violence, according to government data from 2022, with married women particularly at risk.

The 2022 survey found that 41% of married women had experienced violence.

According to a report by UN Women and the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, African countries overall recorded the highest number of femicides in 2022, both in absolute numbers and relative to the size of the continent’s female population.

In October 2021, Olympic runner Agnes Tirop, a rising star in Kenya’s highly competitive athletics scene, was found dead in her home in the town of Iten with multiple stab wounds to the neck. She was 25 years old.

Her husband, Ibrahim Rotich, was charged with her murder and pleaded not guilty. The case is still ongoing.

Tirop’s murder shocked Kenya and led to current and former athletes forming “Tirop’s Angels” in 2022 to combat domestic violence.

Joan Chelimo, one of the founders of the nonprofit organization, told Reuters that female athletes are at high risk of exploitation and violence from men who are interested in their money.

“They fall into the traps of sex offenders who pose as lovers in their lives,” she said.

Information from Reuters contributed to this report.