Asma al-Assad is once again seriously ill with leukemia and doctors have given her a 50% chance of survival, according to the British newspaper The Telegraph.
The wife of deposed Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad is being kept in isolation to protect her from infection, it has been explained. Her father Fawaz Akhras, who has been caring for his daughter in Moscow, is described as “heartbroken” by sources in direct contact with the family. “Asma is dying – said one of them -. She cannot be in the same room with anyone because of her condition”.
Assad found asylum in Russia with his wife after being overthrown. The Syrian presidency announced in May this year that the then first lady had been diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia, an aggressive cancer of the bone marrow and blood. She had previously been treated for breast cancer and announced in August 2019 that she was “completely” free of the disease after a year of treatment. His leukemia is believed to have returned after a period of remission.
The 49-year-old Asma was born in London to Syrian parents and also has British citizenship, but shortly after the fall of Assad Her Majesty's Foreign Secretary David Lammy said the former Syrian first lady was not welcome in the UK.
