Asma al-Assad is severely ill with leukaemia and has been isolated by doctors who have given her a “50/50” chance of survival, The Telegraph understands.

The British wife of the ousted Syrian dictator, Bashar al-Assad, is being kept away from others to prevent infection and cannot be in the same room as anyone else.

Her father, Fawaz Akhras, has been caring for his daughter in Moscow and was described as “heartbroken” by sources in direct contact with her family.

Assad and his wife sought asylum in Moscow after his brutal regime lost its grip on power after 13 years of ruinous civil war.

Syria’s presidency announced in May this year that the then-first lady had been diagnosed with acute myeloid leukaemia, an aggressive cancer of the bone marrow and the blood.