(CNN) -- With Syria limiting access to foreign journalists, Western media outlets are largely relying on amateur photos and videos to tell the story of violence on the ground.
CNN, which is working to vet a wealth of material coming out of Syria, has obtained numerous graphic images of victims. Many of these cannot be aired or published because they depict scenes that could be too disturbing for the network's audience.
The above gallery is a small collection of photographs, mostly from the Damascus-based Shaam News Network, an opposition media outlet.
While the images contain disturbing scenes -- including slain children and a mass burial -- they help paint a portrait of the situation in Syria, which grew dramatically more violent Friday when dozens were massacred in the city of Houla.
President Bashar al-Assad's regime insists it was not behind the massacre and blames terrorist groups. Opposition leaders say the massacre is the latest in Syria's crackdown against protesters.
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Syrians surround a U.N observer vehicle after placing the bodies of a girl and man on the car in Houla on Saturday, May 26, 2012. The photo is from the opposition Shaam News Network. Forty-nine children were among the 108 slaughtered in Houla on Friday, May 25, U.N. monitors say. The massacre in Houla, a suburb of the anti-government bastion of Homs, has reignited international fury against Bashar al-Assad's regime.
The body of a slain Syrian child lies next to other shrouded bodies at a hospital mortuary in Houla on Saturday in another photo from the opposition Shaam News Network. Al-Assad's regime insists it is not behind the massacre and blames terrorist groups. Syria has attributed violence on "armed terrorist groups" throughout the 14-month-old uprising.
Bodies of children lie in a Houla hospital morgue before their burial Saturday in another photo from Shaam News Network. Images from the town show a room crammed with mangled and bloody bodies of children -- some with their skulls torn open.
U.N. observers visit a hospital morgue in Houla on Saturday before the burial of massacre victims. Opposition activists and residents blame al-Assad's regime for the bloodbath.
A Houla resident shows a body to a U.N. observer at a mosque in the central Syrian town. Some U.N. Security Council members condemned the attacks "that involved a series of government artillery and tank shellings on a residential neighborhood" as well as killings of civilians by close-range gunshots.
Syrians gather at a mass burial Saturday in Houla. "Those responsible for these brutal crimes must be held accountable," Kofi Annan, the U.N.-Arab League special envoy, said in a statement.
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