Relative of Bashar al-Assad seeks asylum in Germany
The widow of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s cousin asked for asylum in Germany and is waiting for the decision on her case at one of the centers for refugees in the west of the country, as reported by German DPA news agency citing the local authorities.
Officials of the Warendorf region of the Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia (Western Germany) were faced with the unusual request for asylum. According to the DPA, the woman with a Syrian and Lebanese passport was attacked by other migrants who had fled Syria due to the civil war.
A representative of the local authorities told the news agency that the woman was denied asylum, a decision which she had already appealed. “We do not know the grounds of her application,” he said.
Earlier the local newspaper Westfälische Nachrichten reported that Fatima Massoud al-Assad, widow of Bashar al-Assad’s cousin who was killed in 2014 during the civil war in Syria, has been living in a shelter for migrants in Warendorf since the start of the year. She arrived in Germany last year and submitted an application for asylum to the authorities of Bad Berleburg. She was also denied the status of refugee then. Now, after her failure in Warendorf, alongside her appeal, she has simultaneously submitted documents to one of the migration centers in the federal state of Lower Saxony.
According to the publication, Fatima al-Assad fled from Syria, because she was persecuted by the authorities after the death of her husband. Her son was imprisoned for killing an officer of the Syrian army, and attempts were made on Fatima’s life.