British-born first lady Asma al-Assad, 48, diagnosed with leukemia five years after beating breast cancer

Syria’s British-born first lady Asma al-Assad has been diagnosed with leukemia, the Syrian presidency said on Tuesday.

The announcement came almost five years after the 48-year-old announced that she had made a full recovery from breast cancer.

The statement said that Asma would undergo a special treatment protocol that would require her to isolate, and that she would withdraw from public engagements.

In August 2019, Asma said she had made a full recovery from breast cancer, which she said was caught early.

Since Syria entered the war in 2011, the British-born former investment banker has taken on a public role, leading charity efforts and meeting with families of slain soldiers, but he has also become hated by the opposition.

She heads the Syria Trust for Development, a major NGO that serves as the umbrella organization for many of the relief and development operations in Syria.

Last year she accompanied her husband, President Bashar al-Assad, on a visit to the United Arab Emirates, her first known official trip abroad with him since 2011.

She met Sheikha Fatima bint Mubarak, the mother of the Emirati president, in a trip that was seen as a public signal of her growing role in public affairs.

The former investment banker, born in London, called himself a champion of progressive rights and was seen as the modern side of the Assad dynasty.

The Assads have long worked to present themselves as modern, forward-looking leaders, even as Syria was ravaged by a civil war sparked by an uprising against the family’s decades-long rule.

The first lady, whose father is a cardiologist and whose mother is a diplomat, has two sons and a daughter with Assad.

Asma Assad’s parents are from the central Syrian province of Homs, but she was born and raised in London before returning to Syria after meeting the president.

The couple’s marriage was announced by state media six months after he assumed the presidency in July 2000 following the death of his father Hafez.

Asma Assad has been heavily criticized over the years for her failure to speak out against and stop her husband’s violent regime.

Activists and rebels accuse her of complicity in atrocities they accuse the Syrian government of. The UN has accused government forces of committing massacres and carrying out widespread attacks on civilians.

In a report published in August 2014, the international organization said people had been systematically murdered, tortured, raped – and also forcibly disappeared.

According to the report, these are crimes against humanity.

Such accusations persist to this day, with the war’s effects still acutely felt and having created a massive humanitarian crisis.

The war, which has killed nearly half a million people and displaced half the pre-war population of 23 million, began in March 2011 as peaceful protests against Assad’s government. The protests were met with brutal crackdowns, and the uprising quickly escalated. into a full-blown civil war.

As a result, Asma’s husband’s enemies have dubbed her “the lady of death.”

Advocates have since praised her as ‘the jasmine of Damascus’.

In 2019, Asma announced that she was ‘completely free’ of breast cancer, a year after she was diagnosed with the disease.

In an interview on state television at the time, she encouraged women to get regular checkups, saying early detection of diseases can be crucial for survival.

Her choice to make her diagnosis public was a rare statement in the Arab world, where prominent figures often hide their ailments.

Assad has previously been pictured going to military hospitals for treatment, with husband Bashar Assad by her side.

This is a breaking news story. More to follow…