Princess Bajrakitiyabha Mahidol, the eldest child of King Maha Vajiralongkorn and known across Thailand as Princess Bha, passed away on June 11, 2026, at Chulalongkorn Hospital in Bangkok at just 47 years of age.
She had spent more than three years in a coma after a heart attack brought on by a severe bacterial infection.
When Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul addressed the nation, he called her “a pride of Thailand,” and said her work would remain “a moral legacy for the nation, a guiding light for generations of Thais,” a fitting capstone description of her life’s work and dedication to the people.
Born into royalty, trained in law
Princess Bajrakitiyabha was born on December 7, 1978, the only child of King Vajiralongkorn and his first wife, Princess Soamsawali. She studied law at Thammasat University before heading to Cornell University in New York, where she earned a master’s degree in 2002 and a doctorate in 2005.
Her dissertation focused on the protection of the rights of the accused. It was a preview of everything she would spend the next two decades doing.
A programme exchanging legal scholars between Thailand and Cornell was later established in her name.
A career built outside the palace
After Cornell, the princess joined the Office of the Attorney General in Bangkok as a public prosecutor, and later served as attorney general of Udon Thani Province in northeastern Thailand. It would be a fool’s errand to consider this as merely a ceremonial role.
Her career then moved to a stint at the Thai Mission to the UN in New York before returning home, and she was later appointed Thailand’s ambassador to Austria from 2012 to 2014, with accreditation also covering Slovakia and Slovenia.
She also served as ambassador to the UN Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice in Vienna. In 2017, she was appointed a goodwill ambassador for the UN Office on Drugs and Crime. By that point, the appointment was recognition of work already done rather than a title in search of one.
The Bangkok Rules
In 2006, Princess Bajrakitiyabha launched the Kamlangjai Project (translating to Inspire) to improve conditions for women inside Thai prisons, including pregnant inmates and mothers with young children.
The focus was rehabilitation and reintegration, getting people ready for life outside rather than just managing them inside.
In 2008, she extended the work overseas, launching the Enhancing Lives of Female Inmates project, or ELFI, to build international standards around the treatment of women prisoners. Those two initiatives fed directly into the UN General Assembly’s adoption of the United Nations Rules for the Treatment of Women Prisoners and Non-custodial Measures for Women Offenders in 2010.
The world knows them as the Bangkok Rules.
December 2022
On December 14, 2022, Princess Bajrakitiyabha was at Khao Yai National Park in Nakhon Ratchasima, training her dogs for the Thailand Working Dog Championship, an event being organised by the Royal Thai Army. She suffered a heart attack and lost consciousness.
The palace confirmed she had contracted a mycoplasma infection, a bacterial condition usually associated with pneumonia, which had triggered severe heart arrhythmia. She was transferred to Chulalongkorn Hospital in Bangkok.
Formal updates from the palace were sparse over the years that followed. In August 2025, the Bureau of the Royal Household confirmed she had developed a severe blood infection, with doctors working to stabilise her blood pressure while supporting her kidneys and lungs with medication and equipment.
A September update reported the infection had improved. In May 2026, multiple infections spread across several vital organs. She died on the evening of June 11.
A nation in mourning
Mourners gathered outside Chulalongkorn Hospital after the announcement, many holding framed photographs of her. She will lie in state at the Grand Palace in Bangkok. The Bureau of the Royal Household confirmed the funeral will be held with the highest honours according to royal tradition.
One observer, quoted by Al Jazeera, put it plainly: “Her highness positioned herself very well among the people. She made people feel like the royal family can at least be useful to the people.”
That relationship between the Thai royal family and its people is one with a long and layered history. The Thaiger’s profile of Queen Sirikit covers how that bond has been built and maintained across generations.
The Bangkok Rules are now part of international law. Princess Bajrakitiyabha was 47 years old. The rules will keep doing their job long after the mourning is over.
The story The life and legacy of Thailand’s princess as seen on Thaiger News.
