Thailand Bids Farewell to Queen Mother Sirikit at 93

Queen Sirikit, the mother of Thailand’s King Maha Vajiralongkorn, has passed away at the age of 93.

According to the BBC, citing a statement from Thailand’s Royal Household Bureau on Saturday, Queen Mother Sirikit died at a hospital in Bangkok at 9:21 p.m. local time.

The bureau added that Sirikit had been suffering from several illnesses since being hospitalized in 2019, including a blood infection earlier this month.

For more than six decades, Queen Sirikit was married to Thailand’s longest-reigning monarch, King Bhumibol Adulyadej, who passed away in 2016.

The statement said that King Vajiralongkorn has instructed the Royal Household Bureau to organize a royal funeral.

The late queen’s body will be laid to rest at Dusit Thron Hall in the Grand Palace in Bangkok. The royal household announced that the Thai royal family’s mourning period will last for one year.

Queen Sirikit married the late King Bhumibol Adulyadej in 1950.

She met her future husband while studying music in Paris, where her father served as Thailand’s ambassador to France.

The couple married on April 28, 1950, just one week before King Bhumibol’s coronation in Bangkok.

Queen Sirikit also hosted Queen Elizabeth II during a state visit to Thailand in 1996.

Since 1976, Thailand has celebrated her birthday, August 12, as Mother’s Day.

In 2008, Queen Sirikit attended the funeral of an anti-government protester killed during violent clashes with police.

In 2012, she suffered a stroke and thereafter appeared in public only rarely.