Asma al-Assad, 49, was born in Britain to a Syrian family in 1975 and grew up in Acton, west London.
She moved to Syria in 2000 at the age of 25 and married her husband a few months after he succeeded his father as president.
During her 24 years as Syria’s first lady, Ms. Assad has been the subject of curiosity in the Western media.
A controversial 2011 Vogue profile called her a “desert rose” and called her “the freshest and most magnetic of first ladies.” The article has since been removed from the Vogue website.
Just a month later, Ms Assad was criticized for remaining silent while her husband cracked down on pro-democracy campaigners at the start of Syria’s civil war.
In the future, the conflict took the lives of about half a million people, her husband was accused of using chemical weapons against civilians.
In 2016, Ms Assad told Russian state television that she had rejected a deal to offer her a safe exit from the war-torn country to stand by her husband.
She announced that she was treated for breast cancer in 2018 and said she was fully recovered a year later.
She was diagnosed with leukemia and began treatment in May of this year, then-President Assad’s office announced.
The statement said that she would “temporarily step back” from public engagements.
