We like to think of children as cute, lovable creatures who are all innocence and toys; but even the most despicable men once were children. Besides love, joy and affection, we equally experience evil, hurt and pain during the very first years of our lives. Greek photographer Panos Kefalos captured the eerie side of childhood in a series of images called SaYints:

Pre-adolescent kids, little children, immigrants from Afghanistan. I take their picture in a main square of Athens, on the streets, in hotels, in mosques, inside the houses they live. Play, the means of expression of every child, is the wheel that sets these photographs in motion. Remote, well-hidden feelings, like fear, violence, terror, inhibition, find – through play – a spontaneous way out and become tangible. Everything else is elusive in their world: family, friends, environment, country of residence, identity and personality.

This very mystery, in a paradoxical turn, is what forces the unspoken and the ominous to manifest themselves into these photographs.