First Lady Diagnosed With Acute Leukaemia After Recovering From Breast Cancer

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s wife, Asma, who recovered from breast cancer in 2019, has been diagnosed with leukaemia, the president’s office said on Tuesday.

“First Lady Asma al-Assad has been diagnosed with acute myeloid leukaemia,” it said in a statement.

She will undergo a “specialised treatment protocol” that requires social distancing to avoid infection, the statement said, adding that she will “temporarily withdraw from all direct engagements as part of her treatment plan”.

First Lady Diagnosed With Acute Leukaemia After Recovering From Breast Cancer

In 2019, Syria’s first lady said she was “totally” free of breast cancer after battling the disease for a year.

Born in Britain in 1975, the former investment banker styled herself as a progressive rights advocate and the modern side of the Assad dynasty before the eruption of the country’s brutal civil war in 2011.

Asma often accompanies her husband during his rare official visits abroad, with footage of the presidential couple attending various state-sponsored functions regularly shared in official media.

The first lady was even hailed as “A Rose in the Desert” in a now infamous cover story in US magazine Vogue before plaudits turned to condemnation over her support for her husband’s crushing of pro-democracy protests.

She founded the Syria Trust for Development charity, headquartered in Damascus, which is one of the rare such organisations allowed to work in government-held areas.