Elementary school teacher Juling Pangamoon passed away quietly yesterday at the age of 24 after almost eight months in a coma caused by the severe beating she received from locals near the school she taught at in Narathiwat.

The Chiang Rai native, whose fate gripped the entire nation after she and her colleague, Sirinart Thavornsuk, were beaten senseless by a group of angry young men in the remote village of Kuching Reupah, died at about 4.30pm at Prince of Songkhla Hospital.

"She suffered serious injuries," Dr Sumet Piyawet, the hospital's director, said. "All her internal organs had failed, and lately there was an infection in her brain and lungs."

Juling and Sirinart were given medical treatment under the patronage of HM the Queen.

The teachers were taken hostage by a group of villagers who were demanding the release of a suspected militant arrested earlier in the day by a group of commandos.

They were being held in a childcare centre when a group of about 10 young men charged into the room and beat them mercilessly. While Sirinart recovered within days, Juling, who reportedly fought back, suffered severe head injuries and went into a coma.

The incident shocked the entire country and became a glaring example of tensions between Buddhists and Malay-Muslims in the three southernmost provinces, a region that is largely shunned by the country's civil servants.

More than 20 people from Kuching Reupah and nearby villages have been charged with crimes related to the incident.

Juling was said to have been more than happy to volunteer for a teaching position in the remote village in a region where insurgency-related violence has claimed almost 2,000 lives since January 2004.

Juling was said to be optimistic that her work with children in the hotbed of insurgency would be a positive contribution for a region whose relations with the Thai state has been largely shaped by historical mistrust and misunderstanding.

Juling's parents said she wanted to settle in Narathiwat permanently because she fell in love with the Malay-speaking region and wanted to devote her life to teaching there.

But the peace she had imagined and believed in was not there on May 19, when the entire nation came to a standstill to pray for her recovery and for peace in this restive region.

Security agencies came under severe criticism for failing to act in time to save the teachers, despite previous experience of several stand-offs between villagers and officials. It took more than two hours for the authorities to get to the spot, by which time it was a case of too little, too late.