Bridgeport funeral director says pandemic is causing 'backlog of human remains'

A Bridgeport funeral director says the COVID-19 pandemic has caused "a frustrating backlog of human remains," including a 24-year-old man whose body has yet to be shipped to his mother in Brazil.
Edgar Rodriguez, of Luz De Paz Funeral Home, says families are suffering because they can't get their loved ones buried in a timely fashion due to red tape caused by the pandemic.
He says Gabriel Silva, of Bridgeport, passed away six weeks ago but his remains are still at the funeral home because officials at the secretary of the state's office in Hartford and at the Brazilian Embassy have been slow to process the paperwork.
Rodriguez says Silva's mother, who lives in Brazil, has been going through unimaginable grief since he died the first week of December. He says when bodies are shipped to other countries, documents are often required containing special seals which can only be obtained from embassies.
Rodriguez says because of COVID-19, the death rate is higher to begin with; with a backlog of paperwork - that's when bodies back up at funeral homes across Connecticut. He says the situation is a nightmare.
State Rep. Chris Rosario says he is going to investigate the backlog. Rodriguez says he's doing everything in his power to help decrease the wait-time for families trying to return the bodies of their loved ones to other countries.
Rosario says he will be working with state health officials to try and get Silva's body returned to his mother in Brazil as quickly as possible.