Dying Syrian grandmother allowed to come to UK in Home Office U-turn

Soaad Al Shawa had been barred from spending final days with her family, who fled Damascus to settle in Glasgow

A Syrian grandmother who is dying of cancer has been given permission to come to the UK to spend her final days with the grandchildren she has never met, after a Home Office U-turn.

The government had wanted to bar Soaad Al Shawa, who has liver cancer and has been given just weeks to live by doctors, from travelling to spend her last days with her daughter Ola Al Hamwi, son-in-law Mostafa Amonajid and their three children aged seven, five and one. Al Shawa has only been able to communicate with her grandchildren on video calls.