CAIRO – A Beirut-based Syrian artist has offered little Syrian girls in Lebanon refugee camps a glimpse of fairy tales life, by offering them a costume party where they talked about what makes them happy and their aspirations in the future.

“I didn’t know exactly what to expect,” Syrian Saint Hoax, an anonymous Beirut-based artist, told Indy100.

“[The children] really reminded me of myself as a child and that was the first time that it hit me… This could’ve happened to me. In fact this could happen to anyone! I saw myself in each and every one of them.”

Organizing efforts with Beirut’s Plastik Studios, Hoax visited a refugee camp for those displaced by war in Akkar, in northern Lebanon.

He also works with Malaak, a Lebanese charity which aims to give Syrian children living in the country happy childhoods.

Meeting a group of little girls whom he called “real life heroines”, Hoax offered girls a chance to wear the costume of their favorite fairy tale in a funny party.

“We had the most delightful experience with Aya (age 6). After we took her pictures, she sneaked into her house and changed into another dress. Ten minutes later, she came back to get her picture taken again. She told us “no one took pictures of me yet”. Of course we recognized her, but we took more pictures of her anyway,” he said.

“She loves being in front of the camera, and her dream is to become an actress. Beauty and the Beast is Aya’s favourite fairytale. She styled her hair to look exactly like Belle in this shot.”

Other girls included Maram, 16, who picked Cinderella costume; Bayan, 12, who chose the Sleeping Beauty dress; and Raghad, 12, who loves Frozen because it highlights the relationship between two sisters.

Giving girls a happy day did not change the fact that they had many challenges in their life.

“It breaks my heart knowing that many of these girls could face sexual and gender-based violence, exploitation, trafficking, early marriage,” he told indy100.

“What also upsets me is that most of these girls won’t get the proper education they need. Like every child their age, they have so many dreams. It’s upsetting to think that most of their dreams might not come true.”

As the conflict in Syria enters its fifth year, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has released a new report that the number of children affected by the civil war in Syria has more than doubled over the past year.

UNICEF said the child casualty rates were the highest recorded in any recent conflict in the region.

It cited UN figures that at least 10,000 children have been killed in the Syrian war but noted that the real number is probably higher.

The opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights has said that more than 136,000 have been killed since a revolt against President Bashar al-Assad began in March 2011.

The UNICEF report said 2 million children needed some form of psychological support or treatment while a total of 5.5 million children were affected by the conflict – some of them inside Syria and others living abroad as refugees.

This is more than twice the number of children affected by the conflict in March 2013, when UNICEF estimated it had impacted 2.3 million young Syrians.

The number of children displaced inside Syria has risen to nearly 3 million from 920,000 a year ago. Meanwhile, UNICEF said the number of child refugees has grown to 1.2 million from 260,000 since last year – 425,000 of them under 5 years old.