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

Hospital spokesman Owen Menach confirmed her death on Thursday. Cheptegei was being treated at Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital in Eldoret town.

Trans Nzoia County police commander Jeremiah ole Kosiom said on Monday that Cheptegei’s partner Dickson Ndiema bought a jerry can of petrol, threw it on her and set her alight during a dispute on Sunday. Ndiema was also burnt and was treated at the same hospital.

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

A report from the local leader revealed that the couple had a dispute over the land the house was on before the fire broke out.

Peter Ogwang, Uganda’s minister of state for sports, said Kenyan authorities were investigating the killing, which has drawn attention to violence against women in the East African country.

According to government data from 2022, nearly 34% of Kenyan girls and women between the ages of 15 and 49 have experienced physical violence, with married women at particular risk.

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

A report by UN Women and the UN Office on Drugs and Crime shows that African countries collectively recorded the highest number of murders of women in 2022, both in absolute terms 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 her neck. She was 25.

Ibrahim Rotich, her husband, was accused of her murder and has pleaded not guilty. The case is still ongoing.

Tirop’s murder shocked Kenya, prompting current and former athletes to form ‘Tirop’s Angels’ in 2022 to combat domestic violence.

Joan Chelimo, one of the nonprofit’s founders, told Reuters that female athletes are at high risk of exploitation and violence by men who come after their money.

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

Information from Reuters contributed to this report.