Media reported on Sunday said that Asma al-Assad had filed for divorce.

In December 2010 and the following months, demonstrations against corruption, poverty and political repression took Egypt, Libya, Yemen, and Syria by storm. Around the same time in 2011, Vogue magazine published a profile on Asma al-Assad, the wife of then-Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. It was titled “A Rose in the Desert,” and in the words of Joan Juliet Buck, the writer, Asma was “the freshest and most magnetic of first ladies”.

Cut to 2024, the Assad dynasty has fallen. Asma, once the “rose” of what was a brutal presidency overseeing the killings of 580,000 people — nearly half of them civilians — has filed for a divorce. Ms Buck, in her recent writing, described her as “first lady of hell”.

Reports from Turkish and Arab media suggest that she has been living in Moscow with her husband and their three children. Asma has sought special permission from Russian authorities to leave the country and return to the United Kingdom.

Asma, who holds British citizenship, has been declared by UK officials as “no longer welcome” in the country citing sanctions imposed in 2012 due to her ties to her husband’s regime. Her reputation deteriorated for standing by Bashar during Syria’s civil war, drawing accusations of war profiteering and benefiting from foreign aid through her charity.

Who is Asma al-Assad?

Asma Akhras (as she was known before marriage) was born on August 11, 1975, in London to Syrian parents from Homs. She holds dual British-Syrian citizenship.

She attended Twyford Church of England High School and Queen’s College in London. She graduated from King’s College London in 1996 with a degree in computer science and French literature.

She worked as an analyst at Deutsche Bank and later at J.P. Morgan.

As Syria’s First Lady, she was known for promoting women’s rights and social development initiatives, including the Syria Trust for Development. These efforts, however, ceased with the outbreak of the Syrian civil war in 2011.

Asma faced EU sanctions prohibiting financial assistance and restricting travel due to her ties to the Assad regime. She was also the subject of a UK inquiry into war crimes, including allegations of supporting torture and chemical weapon use. She was facing potential terrorism charges.

The 48-year-old is a cancer survivor and was diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukaemia in May. She previously battled breast cancer in 2018 and underwent chemotherapy in Syria.

How did Asma and Bashar al-Assad meet?

Asma and Bashar al-Assad met during her childhood holidays in Syria, as her family frequently visited from the UK. Their relationship deepened when Bashar moved to London in 1992 to train as an ophthalmologist at the Western Eye Hospital. The couple married in 2000, shortly after Bashar assumed the presidency following his father’s death. They have three children together: Hafez, Zein, and Karim.

How the Assad dynasty fell

Bashar al-Assad’s rule, which relied heavily on an inner circle of family members, saw its end after over five decades of Alawite domination in a predominantly Sunni nation. The family’s fortunes took a sharp turn after rebel forces breached Damascus, forcing Assad to flee and effectively ending the regime’s decades-long grip on power in Syria.

Beirut, Lebanon:

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s British-born 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,” an aggressive cancer of the white blood cells involved in battling infection, 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”.

In 2019, Syria’s first lady had 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.

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.

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

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)