WARNING: This article contains details of domestic violence.

Joan Chelimo Melly keeps wondering if there's something she could have done to save Rebecca Cheptegei's life.

Cheptegei, a 33-year-old Ugandan Olympic runner and mother of two girls, died this week after she was doused in gasoline and set on fire Sunday at her home in Endebess, Kenya. Police have identified her ex-boyfriend as the main suspect. 

Chelimo Melly, a Kenyan Romanian runner and advocate against gender-based violence, met Cheptegei briefly last month, when they both competed at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris.

"I just feel sad because maybe I could have done something," Chelimo Melly told As It Happens host Nil Koksal. "I didn't know what she was going through."

Cheptegei is the third elite female athlete killed in a suspected case of domestic violence since 2021. 

Advocates say Kenya is facing an epidemic of gender-based violence and killings, and that female athletes are targeted, in part, because they defy traditional roles, and because their success makes them vulnerable to financial exploitation.

"We are failing our women," said Zaina Kombo of Amnesty International Kenya.

'It really broke my heart'

Trans-Nzoia County Police Commander Jeremiah ole Kosiom said Monday that Cheptegei's partner, Dickson Ndiema, bought a can of gasoline and attacked her during a disagreement on Sunday. Cheptegei's family says the pair split up in February. 

Ndiema was also burned and is being treated in hospital. He has not yet been charged. 

When Chelimo Melly learned what had been done to Cheptegei, she immediately thought of her late friend Agnes Jebet Tirop.

Tirop, a 25-year-old Olympic runner and two-time world championship bronze medalist, was stabbed to death in her home in Iten, Kenya, in 2021. Her husband Ibrahim Rotich was charged with her murder, and has pleaded not guilty. 

The following year, Kenyan-born runner Damaris Muthee Mutua was found strangled in Iten. Her boyfriend Koki Fai is wanted for her murder. 

Tirop's murder inspired Chelimo Melly to team up with other Kenyan athletes to found Tirop's Angels, an organization that works to prevent gender-based violence in Kenya. 

The organization travels to villages, schools and athletic camps to educate girls and young women about the warning signs of domestic abuse and how to report it. They also advocate for better laws to protect women in Kenya, and help women and girls escape from abusive situations. 

"We've saved many lives and we've had many success stories," Chelimo Melly said.

Those successes, she says, keep her motivated when things are tough. But Cheptegei's murder, she says, proves there's still a long way to go.

"Just hearing the news, it really broke my heart," she said.

Chelimo Melly says abusive men target female athletes in part because they excel in fields long dominated by men, but also to control the money they earn in sports. 

That's why she says Tirop's Angels educates girls on financial literacy, and pushes athletics agents to ensure the women they represent are paid through their own bank accounts, and not those of their husbands.

But the issue of gender-based violence extends far beyond the athletic community. 

In January, thousands of Kenyans took to the streets to protest what they say is an epidemic of femicide, which the United Nations defines as the "intentional killing" of women and girls that "may be driven by stereotyped gender roles ... unequal power relations between women and men, or harmful social norms."

The organization Femicide Count Kenya, which tracks these killings through police, media and public reports, recorded 152 killings in 2023, the highest tally since the group began tracking the stats in 2018.

Nearly 34 per cent of Kenyan girls and women aged 15 to 49 years have suffered physical violence, according to government data from 2022, with married women at particular risk. 

It's something Moureen Atieno Omolo is all too familiar with. 

The 36-year-old Kenyan says she was unable to sleep for days after hearing about Cheptegei's grisly murder. Every time she closed her eyes, memories of her violent marriage came flooding back.

Orphaned in her teens, Omolo was married at the age of 15 to a man aged 22. The abuse began almost immediately, she told Reuters, eventually escalating to the point of him gouging out her left eye and slashing her left hand with a machete in 2018.

The attack and his threats to kill their three children led her to abandon the marriage and file a case against him.

"I should have left him years ago when he first threatened me," she said. "He took away my self-confidence."

WATCH | Ugandan Olympic runner dies after being set on fire 

Ugandan Olympic marathon runner dies after being set on fire

Ugandan Olympic marathon runner Rebecca Cheptegei has died, days after a man believed to be her boyfriend doused her in gasoline and set her on fire. Two other female athletes have died as a result of intimate partner violence in Kenya since 2021.

Calls for justice

Cheptegei's father, Joseph Cheptegei, spoke to journalists Thursday outside the hospital where his daughter died from her injuries, and where her accused killer is still recovering.

He said he reported his daughter's ex-boyfriend to police before, and nothing was done to protect her. 

"The criminal who harmed my daughter is a murderer and I am yet to see what the security officials are doing," he said. "He is still free and might even flee."

Chelimo Melly noted that her friend Tirop's husband is free on bail pending a verdict in his trial. Mutua's suspected killer remains on the lam.

"The perpetrators are not being held accountable," she said. "You can kill someone and you can still be free."

She keeps thinking back to her one conversation with Cheptegei. She says the runner was nervous to compete in her first Olympic Games, but mostly, she just seemed excited to be there. 

"She looked happy," Chelimo Melly said. "I wish I knew. I could have just rescued her from that."

For anyone affected by family or intimate partner violence, there is support available through crisis lines and local support services. ​​If you're in immediate danger or fear for your safety or that of others around you, please call 911.

With files from Reuters and The Associated Press. Interview with Joan Chelimo Melly produced by Morgan Passi