Thousands of Australian children forced to flee their homes during the Black Summer bushfires had extremely limited access to support.
Almost 65,000 people were displaced by the fires between July 2019 and February 2020.
Among them were 14,500 children including about 8000 aged between five and fourteen.
A new report has found in the absence of government funding, specific services for children in evacuation centres were extremely limited.
"Their needs were often overlooked," the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre said in its report.
While the bushfires reached their peak during school holidays, many children were evacuated from their homes in November and late January, inflicting an emotional toll and causing disruption to their learning.
"The upheaval of displacement and loss of learning were nevertheless a source of anxiety and distress for children," the report found.
Charity organisation Save the Children seized on the report to renew calls for greater support for kids affected by bushfires and other disasters.
The agency set up 10 child-friendly spaces in bushfire evacuation centres and provided about 800 kids with emergency and psychosocial support.
It also ran mobile outreach services.
"We know that children's needs were systematically overlooked at a range of levels, causing undue harm, and this cannot be allowed to happen again," Save the Children chief executive Paul Ronalds said.
"We need a more systematic approach to support children's social and emotional needs during bushfires, including education, and in the recovery process, which can take many months or even years."
The bushfires destroyed 3100 houses and burned more than 17 million hectares of land.
The Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre found it would take people who lost homes in Australia an average of one to four years to rebuild.
Australian Associated Press
