Thailand mourns Queen Sirikit as year-long royal funeral begins
The matriarch’s remains will lie in state for one year at Bangkok’s Grand Palace before cremation
Thousands of grieving Thai royalists lined the streets of Bangkok on Sunday, saluting a procession bringing former Queen Sirikit’s body to lie in state for a year-long funeral at the capital’s Grand Palace.
Sirikit’s body was carried in a slow-moving ambulance from Chulalongkorn Hospital late on Sunday afternoon, flanked by motorbike outriders on a 10-kilometre (six-mile) procession to the Grand Palace.
Crowds of nurses clasped their hands and bowed as the convoy passed, while other spectators clutched portraits of the queen or wept as ranks of saluting police officers fell to one knee.
“I want to send her off for the last time, on her last journey, as one of her children – as a Thai who loves and respects her,” 56-year-old Boontham Kornwaen told journalists outside the hospital.