Uganda’s Olympic athlete Rebecca Cheptegei has died four days after she was doused in petrol and set on fire by her boyfriend in Kenya, multiple media outlets reported on Thursday.

According to local media, Cheptegei, 33, who competed in the Paris Olympics, suffered burns to more than 75% of her body in the attack, making her the third sportswoman to be killed in Kenya since October 2021.

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

Kenyan Sports Minister Kipchumba Murkomen described her death as a loss “to the entire region”.

“This tragedy is a stark reminder that we must do more to combat gender-based violence in our society, which in recent years has reared its ugly head in elite sporting circles,” he said in a statement seen by Reuters.

Police said her partner, a certain Dickson Ndiema Marangach doused Cheptegei with petrol and set her alight on Sunday at her home in Endebess in the western county of Trans-Nzoia.

The incident took place just weeks after Cheptegei participated in the women’s marathon at the Paris Olympics, where she finished 44th.

The Uganda Olympic Committee called for swift action in a statement confirming Cheptegei’s death.

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

The 2022 survey found that 41 percent of married women had faced violence.

A report by UN Women and the UN Office on Drugs and Crime said that in 2022, African countries collectively recorded the largest number of killings of women, both in absolute terms and relative to the size of the continent’s female population.

In October 2021, Olympian 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.

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

The 25-year-old’s killing shocked Kenya, with current and former athletes setting up ‘Tirop’s Angels’ in 2022 to combat domestic violence.

Joan Chelimo, one of the founders of the non-profit, told Reuters that female athletes were at high risk of exploitation and violence at the hands of men drawn to their money.