Thailand’s Queen Mother Sirikit Dies at Age 93

The Royal Family Office said he died in a hospital in Bangkok, where he began suffering from a blood infection on October 17 and his condition did not improve despite the efforts of his medical team. He suffered a stroke in 2012 and subsequently remained largely absent from public life due to his declining health. Her husband, King Bhumibol Adulyadej, died in October 2016.

Mourners gathered outside Chulalongkorn Hospital on Saturday morning after hearing the news.

“This is again a huge loss for the whole nation. I heard this at 4 in the morning, I felt like fainting. It was like the whole world stopped,” said Maneerat Laowalert, 67.

Although overshadowed by her late husband and son, the current king, Sirikit was a beloved and influential person in her own right. Her portrait has been displayed in homes, offices and public spaces across Thailand, and her birthday, 12 August, is celebrated as Mother’s Day. Their activities ranged from helping Cambodian refugees to saving some of the country’s once lush forests from destruction.

The Thai monarchy has traditionally avoided an overt role in politics, but in recent decades of political turmoil marked by two military coups and several rounds of bloody street protests, speculation has grown about Sirikit’s views and his behind-the-scenes influence. When he publicly attended the funeral of a protester killed during a clash with police in 2008, many saw it as him taking sides in the political divide.

Sirikit met the king while living in Europe Sirikit Kitiyakara was born into a wealthy, aristocratic family in Bangkok on 12 August 1932, the year that the absolute monarchy was replaced by the constitutional system. Both his parents were related to previous kings of the current Chakri dynasty.

He attended schools in wartime Bangkok, the target of Allied air raids, and after World War II moved with his diplomat father to France, where he served as ambassador.

At the age of 16, he met the newly crowned king of Thailand in Paris, where he studied music and languages. Their friendship developed after Bhumibol was involved in a near-fatal car accident and moved to Switzerland, where he was studying, to help care for Bhumibol. The king courted her with poems and composed a waltz titled “I Dream of You.”

The couple married in 1950, and at their coronation later that year, both vowed to “rule with righteousness for the benefit and happiness of the Siamese (Thai) people.”

The couple had four children: the current King Maha Vajiralongkorn and princesses Ubolratana, Sirindhorn and Chulabhorn.

In the early years of their marriage, the Thai royal family traveled the world as goodwill ambassadors and formed personal ties with world leaders. Malaysian Foreign Minister Mohamad Hasan expressed his “sincere condolences” over her death in his opening speech to a meeting with Southeast Asian counterparts in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Return to rural Thailand But in the early 1970s the king and queen turned most of their energies to Thailand’s domestic problems, such as rural poverty, opium addiction in hill tribes, and communist insurgency.

The couple would tour the countryside each year while also attending more than 500 royal, religious and state ceremonies.

An impeccable dresser and shopaholic, the queen also loved climbing hills and visiting simple villages, where old women called her “my girl”.

Thousands of people brought their problems to her, ranging from marital squabbles to serious illnesses, and the queen and her aides addressed many of them personally.

While some in Bangkok gossiped about his involvement in palace intrigue and lavish lifestyle, his popularity in the countryside continued.

“Misunderstandings are emerging between people in rural areas and the wealthy, so-called civilized people in Bangkok. People in rural Thailand say they are neglected, and we are trying to fill that gap by staying with them in remote areas,” he said in an interview with The Associated Press in 1979.

Royal development projects were established throughout Thailand, some initiated and directly supervised by the queen.

In 1976, the queen established a foundation aimed at increasing the income of poor rural families and preserving dying crafts. The foundation, known as SUPPORT, trained thousands of villagers in silk weaving, jewelry making, painting, ceramics and other traditional crafts.

He also established wildlife breeding centres, “open zoos” and hatcheries to save endangered sea turtles. The Forest Loves Water and Little House in the Forest projects aimed to demonstrate the economic gains of protecting forest cover and water resources.

While royalty elsewhere had only ceremonial or symbolic roles, Queen Sirikit believed that the monarchy was a vital institution in Thailand.

“There are people in universities who think the monarchy is obsolete. But I think Thailand needs an understanding monarch,” he said in a 1979 interview. “Thousands of people will gather on the call ‘The King is coming’.

“Even the word king has something magical in it. It’s wonderful.”