Viola Lagat, a Kenyan middle-distance runner on Friday said that athletes are tired of burying their sisters, friends, and colleagues because of gender-based violence during a procession to escort the body of athlete Rebeca Cheptegei.
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00:00Knowing how Rebecca lost her life in such an officious way, a very painful death, we are here to mourn with the family and also us as hard hits, we are here to comfort ourselves and then we will regroup and get back to working towards ending GBV.
00:16How long are we going to allow gender based violence to take so many lives before we say it's enough?
00:23Today here, as athletes, we are here to say enough is enough. We are tired of burying our sisters, our friends, our colleagues because of GBV. We are tired of communicating and nobody is saying anything about it.
00:36I would like first of all to say, starting from the Ministry of Sports, you have to sit down with us and come up with a roadmap on how to end GBV because it's not business as usual.
00:48Our women are dying every single day. If we were to line up with all these banners, starting from Agnes, to Damaris, to Mudoni, to now Rebecca, we have so many women in between.
00:58From when we lost Agnes to today when we lost Rebecca, we would have banners stretching all the way to MTRH. So we want to say enough is enough. We are tired of burying our sisters and friends.
01:10We want this to end. Today is the last day. This should be the last one. We lit candles yesterday just to say it's over. We said it's over.
01:21As athletes community, men and women, we said it's over. Now we need the support of the community as well.
01:29Stop condoning. You see people being killed. You see people being beaten. What are you apologizing for? Why are people not talking? Neighbors, what are you apologizing for?
01:40What are you doing to be held accountable? Because Rebecca could have been saved if somebody had actually tried to save her.
01:46So as a community, I want to say shame on those who did not help Rebecca. And as of now, we will make sure that those who did not help the victims of GBP,
01:55you put them on video, you put them on social media, you say it's a police case, you will be held responsible. That way this comes to an end.