Cancer-stricken Assad wife ‘has 50/50 chance of survival’

Asma Assad is in isolation in Moscow and being cared for by her ‘heartbroken’ father after her leukaemia aggressively returned.

Asma and Bashar al-Assad in Paris in 2010. Picture; Getty Images.

The wife of the deposed Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad is severely ill with leukaemia and has been given a 50/50 chance of survival, it has been reported.

The Assad family fled to Moscow this month as a rebel offensive swept into Damascus, the Syrian capital, and toppled the regime. after 13 years of civil war.

Asma al-Assad, who was born in Britain, left for Russia with her children before her husband. She is said to be in isolation to prevent infection, according to The Daily Telegraph, which reported that she was being cared for by her “heartbroken” father, Fawaz Akhras, a Harley Street cardiologist.

In May, the Syrian presidency announced that Assad had been diagnosed with an acute form of leukaemia, a cancer that affects blood cells in bone marrow. She had previously been treated for breast cancer, but announced in 2019 that she was free of the disease after a year of treatment.

According to sources, the leukaemia is believed to have reappeared after a period of remission. One source, who was reported to have communicated directly with a representative of the family, said: “Asma is dying. She can’t be in the same room with anyone [because of her condition].”

Another source, who was said to have been in contact with the family in Moscow, said: “When leukaemia comes back, it’s vicious. She has been 50/50 in the last few weeks.”

Previous reports have suggested that Assad is unhappy with restrictions put upon her in Russia, and wants to divorce her husband and seek treatment in London. The Kremlin has denied this, though the family have not commented.

Mrs Assad, 49, grew up in Acton, west London, with her father and her mother, Sahar, a former diplomat at the Syrian embassy, and her brothers, Feras, 46, and Eyad, 44, who are doctors. She got a degree in computer science from King’s College London and went into investment banking before she began dating Assad in 1992. They have three children: Hafez, a PhD student, Zein and Karim.

This week Robert Jenrick, the British shadow justice secretary, said it would be “an affront to the millions of Assad’s victims if his wife returned to a life of luxury in the UK”.

David Lammy, the foreign secretary, has said that she is not welcome to return to the UK.

The Times