The U.N. special envoy on human rights in Myanmar says the military's violent operations against Rohingya Muslims bear "the hallmarks of a genocide."

Yanghee Lee told reporters Thursday in Seoul, where she is based, that she couldn't make a definitive declaration about genocide until a credible international tribunal or court had weighed the evidence but "we are seeing signs and it is building up to that."

Responding to a question about an Associated Press report that details a massacre and at least five mass graves in the Myanmar village of Gu Dar Pyin, Lee said that while she didn't have specific details on the village, "you can see it's a pattern" that has emerged in the Rohingya persecution.

Nearly 700,000 Rohingya have fled their villages into Bangladesh since August.