Eight buses carrying 174 Mariupol civilians, including 40 evacuated from the Black Sea port's besieged Azovstal steelworks, arrived in Ukrainian-controlled Zaporizhzhia on Sunday, an AFP reporter witnessed.
The 40 were evacuated Saturday from the steel plant, where the last Ukrainian soldiers in the devastated city are holed up and surrounded by Russian troops.
Evacuees, some with young children, left white buses that had transported them to a shopping centre car park in Zaporizhzhia, a city in southern Ukraine that has become a hub for those fleeing Russian-occupied areas.
Humanitarian workers escorted elderly people, including a woman in a wheelchair.
"I'm relieved to confirm that we managed to bring 174 more people to safety from the hell of Mariupol today," Osnat Lubrani, the UN's humanitarian coordinator in Ukraine, tweeted.
"Our work is not yet done. I don't forget those who've been left behind," she added.
More than 600 people have now been evacuated from Mariupol through safe passages but "scores" could not join the convoys in recent days, Lubrani said in a statement.
"We will continue our engagement with both parties to the conflict to make sure that those who want to leave have the guarantees to do so safely and in the direction of their choice," she added.
- 'Surrender not an option' -
Earlier Sunday, the Ukrainian soldiers holding out at the steelworks made it clear they would not surrender.
"We, all of the military personnel in the garrison of Mariupol, we have witnessed the war crimes performed by Russia, by the Russian army," said Ilya Samoilenko, an Azov regiment intelligence officer.
"We are witnesses. Surrender is not an option because Russia is not interested in our lives."
Ukraine presidential aide, Mykhaylo Podolyak, said on social media Sunday that Kyiv "won't stop until we evacuate all our people" from Azovstal.
Late Saturday, Kyiv called on the aid agency Doctors Without Borders (MSF) to evacuate the last remaining soldiers there, many of whom are wounded.
Ukraine also said all women civilians, children and elderly people had been evacuated from the Azovstal plant.
The Azovstal steel mill is the last pocket of Ukrainian resistance in the devastated port city and its fate has taken on a symbolic value in the broader battle since Russia's invasion.