A 46-year-old Romanian, dead in Germany, was cremated without the family in Romania being notified of the death. Six months after the man's death, the Romanian authorities were not able to send the parents, who learned about the tragedy through an acquaintance, even the death certificate.
Sorin died in a hospital in Gelsenkirchen after several complications. PHOTO Pixabay
Two parents from Bocșa, Caraş-Severin county, are living a real drama after their son, Sorin Laiu (46 years old), died in Germany, where he went in May of last year. With a disorganized lifestyle, Sorin left home on May 21, 2023 and arrived in Gelsenkirchen, Germany.
On August 18, the parents from Romania, who are retired, spoke to Sorin for the last time on the phone. Since then, for several months, the man did not look for his parents, and they did not know anything about him.
Through a woman in Germany who knew their son, the parents sought information about him. On December 22, 2023, the acquaintance in Germany informed the parents that he had learned from the German police that Sorin had died on September 23, 2023 and that he had been cremated.
The mutterings of the authorities
With the news that they had lost their son received on the eve of Christmas, the parents waited for the holidays to pass and went to the consulate to obtain the death certificate and information about where the urn of ashes had been deposited.
Six months after the death, consular authorities failed to send the parents the death certificate, the only documents sent to the family being a medical letter showing that Sorin had died in a hospital in Germany and the notice, in which the man had the same address as of the parents.
Sorin's mother, Maria Laiu, told “Adevărul” that, following insistence, on February 7, 2024, she finally received in the mail a document in German that she believes is the death certificate.
With the received document, the Laiu family went to the Population Registry, where they were informed that the request for transcription of the death for the deceased Laiu Sorin was rejected because the file was submitted “a multilingual extract in xerocopy”. In other words, the parents received from the Romanian consulate in Germany a color copy, which imitates the original, but which the Romanian authorities do not take into account.
The explanations of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
The Population Register has informed the family that for the issuance of the death certificate in Romania, the original death certificate translated and legalized by a Romanian notary or original multilingual extract is needed. Following this situation, the family of the deceased man in Germany suspects that the original documents have been lost, and now the authorities are trying to obtain copies to reassure the family.
“Adevărul” also requested a point of view from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which refused to provide details about the case, limiting itself to saying that “The Ministry of Foreign Affairs – the Consular Department ordered the necessary measures, through the consular office in whose constituency the death occurred, for the detailed verification of the situation and for maintaining direct contact with the family of the Romanian citizen, in order to provide the necessary consular support and assistance, according to the legal powers”.
“If inconsistencies are reported regarding the identification data of the Romanian citizen, additional steps are taken with the local authorities in the country of residence with the aim of clarifying these data. These procedures, in some cases, can cause delays, especially if the family is not in contact, for a long period of time, with relatives abroad, for various reasons, and the local authorities do not identify among their personal effects any kind of contact details of the family in Romania”it is also shown in the answer of the MAE.
