Princess Bajrakitiyabha Narendira Debyavati, the eldest daughter of King Maha Vajiralongkorn, has died after spending more than three years in a coma. She was 47.
She collapsed in December 2022 while exercising her dogs, and was airlifted to hospital. Her doctors attributed the sudden loss of consciousness to a severely irregular heartbeat caused by a mycoplasma infection in her heart. The princess died on Thursday evening at 19:48 local time in Chulalongkorn Hospital, the palace said in a statement on Friday morning. “The medical team provided the closest and most intensive care possible, but her condition continued to decline progressively,” the statement read.
“Princess Bajrakitiyabha, 47, died after three years in a coma following a collapse while exercising her dogs.”
Born on 7 December 1978 to the then crown prince and his first wife, Princess Soamsawali, Bajrakitiyabha – popularly known as Princess Pa – trained as a lawyer, earning two post-graduate degrees from Cornell University in the US. She worked briefly at the Thai mission to the United Nations in New York before returning to Thailand to work in the Attorney-General’s offices. From 2012 to 2014 she served as Thailand’s ambassador to Austria, Slovenia and Slovakia, building a relationship with the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).
She became an outspoken advocate for penal reform, focusing on vulnerable women in prison – Thailand has one of the world’s highest numbers of female inmates. In 2017 she was appointed UNODC’s Ambassador for the Rule of Law in South East Asia, and continued to campaign for reform of the country’s criminal justice system, where severe sentences are often handed down for relatively minor drug possession charges. She also founded a charity promoting the rights of female inmates, particularly those who were pregnant while in jail.
In 2021 her father gave her the rank of general and made her a chief of staff in his private bodyguard. A fitness enthusiast who often took part in long-distance runs, she was widely seen as a potential heir to the throne. King Vajiralongkorn, 73, has not yet named an heir. The 1974 constitution allows a female to take the throne, but Thai custom dictates a male. The king has five sons, but four by his second marriage were disowned in 1996 and live in the US; the fifth, Dipangkorn, is the presumed heir, though questions have been raised about his ability to perform the monarch’s role.
Her death leaves the royal family without its most visibly accomplished member at a time of uncertain succession. The palace will hold royal funeral rites, and the government is expected to declare a period of national mourning.