London-born Syrian first lady, Asma al-Assad, has been diagnosed with leukemia.
According to AFP, this announcement was made by the office of President Bashar Assad on Tuesday.
The statement revealed that Asma al-Assad was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia “after presenting with several symptoms and following a comprehensive series of medical tests and examinations.”
She will “adhere to a specialised treatment protocol that includes stringent infection prevention measures” and “will temporarily withdraw from all direct engagements” as part of the treatment plan, it added.
Acute myeloid leukemia is an aggressive cancer of the bone marrow and the blood.
Asma al-Assad has previously been treated for breast cancer and announced in August 2019 that she was “completely” free of the disease a year after her diagnosis.
Born and raised in the UK to Syrian parents, the first lady is a powerful and divisive figure, under western sanctions and highly controversial in the course of the Syrian conflict.
She was an investment banker before quitting to marry the then-newly minted President Bashar Assad in 2000. She has since maintained a public role, promoting civil and charity groups, but has been accused of using her British education and Western style to try to mask the brutality of her husband’s crackdown on dissent.
The war, which has killed nearly half a million people and displaced half the country’s pre-war population of 23 million, began as peaceful protests against Assad’s government in March 2011. The protests were met by a brutal crackdown, and the revolt quickly spiraled into a full-blown civil war.
The announcement of Assad’s diagnosis came as her influential NGO, the Syrian Trust for Development, was putting on its annual Damascene Rose Festival celebrating the rose harvest season.
Before she announced her withdrawal from public events, it was widely anticipated that the first lady would participate in the festivities.
