“The Shenzhen Youth Community provides free accommodation for graduates as well as mainland students studying in Hong Kong,” the notice said, listing contact details for the centres.

Associations in Shenzhen were helping students wanting to leave Hong Kong by sharing posts on social media with instructions on who to contact for transport and assistance.

Hong Kong security chief warns protesters they have no place to hide and universities are not above the law

Li Da, secretary general of Dapeng district’s Overseas Chinese Returnees Association, said 150 mainland students in Hong Kong had contacted him about leaving the city.

He said the association started offering help on Tuesday night after realising the graveness of the situation.

“We told them how to get out, who to contact, and provided them with information,” he said. “It’s a chaotic situation. We hope to help as much as possible.”

Various community organisations in Hong Kong, including the Federation of Hong Kong Hubei Associations, also said it would help students from the province planning to leave the city.

“We volunteered to help students from Hubei, and we can arrange free rooms in [a hotel] near the Futian checkpoint,” federation secretary Lu Hairong said, adding that the group was not acting in response to a request from the liaison office.

Other groups such as the Hunan Youth Association of Hong Kong and the Hong Kong Tianjin Friendship Association offered similar help to students from those areas.

Without specifying the number, Hong Kong’s marine police said it used a vessel to ferry students back to the mainland on Wednesday morning.

One Chinese-language media report said that about 90 people were waiting on the pier for the boat.

Some Hong Kong educational institutions have also provided free shuttle buses for students planning to leave. A notice from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology on Wednesday said buses would be running every 15 minutes from 10.30am to 4pm from the school to an MTR station, where students could take cross-border shuttles or the high-speed rail to the mainland.

A doctoral student surnamed Liu, who took one of the shuttle buses said conditions in the city had left her a bit uneasy.

“Many mainland students took the bus and left Hong Kong ... today,” she said.

Yang Bingbing, a master’s student from Baptist University, said he was also worried about the violence but would stay in the city.

“I support the Hongkongers’ appeals but I oppose violence. The escalation outside the campus, such as [someone] setting fire to an older person with different views, really terrified me,” Yang said.

“But I have decided to stay, instead of going back to my hometown in Wuhan, since I have to catch up with class assignments, and not all my mainland classmates have left – at least for now.”

The central government’s liaison office in Hong Kong issued a notice on Sunday, saying Beijing would help mainland students in Hong Kong.