{"id":238997,"date":"2025-10-25T03:03:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-25T03:03:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/238997\/"},"modified":"2025-10-25T03:03:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-25T03:03:09","slug":"thailand-mourns-as-beloved-queen-mother-sirikit-dies-at-93-obituaries-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/238997\/","title":{"rendered":"Thailand mourns as beloved Queen Mother Sirikit dies at 93 | Obituaries News"},"content":{"rendered":"

DEVELOPING STORYDEVELOPING STORY, <\/p>\n

Former Queen Sirikit, mother of Thailand\u2019s current King Maha Vajiralongkorn, passed away on Friday night, the palace said.<\/p>\n

Thailand is in mourning following the royal palace\u2019s announcement that former Queen Sirikit, the mother of the current Thai King Maha Vajiralongkorn and wife of the nation\u2019s late and longest-reigning monarch Bhumibol Adulyadej, has died at the age of 93.<\/p>\n

\u201cHer Majesty\u2019s condition worsened until Friday and she passed away at 9:21pm \u2026 at Chulalongkorn Hospital at age 93,\u201d the palace said in a statement on Saturday.<\/p>\n

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Sirikit was married to King Bhumibol, who died in 2016 after seven decades on the throne.<\/p>\n

Suffering from numerous ailments and rarely appearing in public since suffering a debilitating stroke in 2012, Sirikit had been hospitalised since September 2019.<\/p>\n

She had been dealing with a blood infection since October 17, and despite her medical team\u2019s efforts, her condition did not improve, according to reports.<\/p>\n

Government spokesman Siripong Angkasakulkiat said that Thai Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul had cancelled his trip to the ASEAN leaders\u2019 summit \u2013 set to be held in Malaysia from Sunday to Tuesday \u2013 following news of the Queen Mother\u2019s death.<\/p>\n

Thailand\u2019s cabinet met on Saturday morning to discuss the funeral arrangements, while her remains will be enshrined in Bangkok\u2019s Grand Palace.<\/p>\n

\"epaselectA Thai royalist holds a portrait of Thai Queen Mother Sirikit during a ceremony to celebrate her 93rd birthday at the Royal Ground Sanam Luang in Bangkok, Thailand, on August 12, 2025 [Rungroj Yongrit\/EPA]<\/p>\n

King Vajiralongkorn has decreed that a one-year official mourning period will be observed by members of the royal family and royal servants from the date of her passing, according to the Thai PBS media outlet.<\/p>\n

Although overshadowed by the stature of her late husband and her son, now Thailand\u2019s King Vajiralongkorn, Sirikit was a similarly beloved figure across much of the country, with her August 12 birthday celebrated as Mother\u2019s Day.<\/p>\n

Even during widespread student-led protests<\/a> in 2020 and 2021 \u2013 which morphed into unprecedented public criticism of the monarchy and calls to repeal draconian lese-majeste laws \u2013 protesters\u2019 ire was largely directed at the King rather than his parents.<\/p>\n

The royal family is venerated in Thailand and the monarchy is protected by some of the world\u2019s harshest laws<\/a> banning criticism of the institution.<\/p>\n

They are treated by many as semi-divine figures and lavished with glowing media coverage and gold-adorned portraits hanging in public spaces and private homes nationwide.<\/p>\n

King Bhumibol\u2019s death<\/a> in 2016 was followed by intense displays of public grief and a yearlong official mourning period, with many Thais choosing to wear black for its duration.<\/p>\n

Sirikit was born into a rich, aristocratic family in Bangkok in 1932, the year absolute monarchy was replaced by a constitutional system in Thailand.<\/p>\n

She met Bhumibol in 1948 in Paris, where her father was the Thai ambassador and the 16-year-old Sirikit was studying music and languages.<\/p>\n

The pair would marry two years later on April 28, 1950, a week before Bhumibol was officially crowned as Rama IX of the Chakri Dynasty.<\/p>\n

Sirikit was given the royal title Somdet Phra Nang Chao Sirikit Phra Borommarachininat. The couple had four children \u2013 King Vajiralongkorn, and princesses Ubolratana, Sirindhorn and Chulabhorn.<\/p>\n

During their early decades on the throne, the young Thai royals crisscrossed the world as goodwill ambassadors, forging personal ties with world leaders, with Sirikit becoming known internationally for her fashion sense.<\/p>\n

By the 1970s, the royals had turned to Thailand\u2019s domestic problems, setting up development programmes to address issues including rural poverty and opium addiction in hill tribes. Their charitable activities were televised each evening on the country\u2019s Royal Bulletin.<\/p>\n

\"ThaiThailand\u2019s then-King Bhumibol Adulyadej, right, the world\u2019s longest-reigning monarch, and Queen Sirikit, left, attend the opening ceremony of The Queen Sirikit National Convention Centre in Bangkok, Thailand in 1991 [File: Apichart Weerawong\/Reuters]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DEVELOPING STORYDEVELOPING STORY, Former Queen Sirikit, mother of Thailand\u2019s current King Maha Vajiralongkorn, passed away on Friday night,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":238998,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[77,43,44,31481,3725,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-238997","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-asia-pacific","9":"tag-headlines","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-obituaries","12":"tag-thailand","13":"tag-top-news","14":"tag-top-stories","15":"tag-topnews","16":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238997","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=238997"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238997\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/238998"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=238997"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=238997"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=238997"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}