US-backed Syrian fighters said on Friday they expect a fierce battle with ISIS militants still holed up in their last enclave in eastern Syria, after US President Donald Trump said the militants had been driven from all the territory they held. The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have been poised for several weeks to wipe out the last vestige of ISIS territorial rule at the besieged village of Baghouz near the Iraqi border, but the operation has been held up by efforts to evacuate thousands of civilians. The United Nations said at least 84 people, two thirds of them children, had died since December on their way to a camp in northeastern Syria where thousands of people have been taken after leaving the shrinking ISIS area. The ISIS enclave at Baghouz, a tiny area on the eastern bank of the Euphrates River, is the last populated territory held by the militants who have been steadily driven by an array of enemies from swathes of land they once held. Though the fall of Baghouz will mark a milestone in the campaign against ISIS, the group continues to be seen as a security threat, using guerrilla tactics and holding some desolate territory in a remote area west of the Euphrates River. Mustafa Bali, head of the SDF media office, told Reuters that ISIS militants were still holed up inside the area and had not surrendered, and that there were still civilians in the enclave. The SDF plans to evacuate another large group of civilians on Friday, he said. "We wont storm the village and declare it liberated unless we have completely confirmed the departure of civilians," he said. "We expect a fierce battle". Many of the jihadists left in Baghouz are foreign fighters, the SDF has said previously. The SDF extracted hundreds more people from the ruins of the "caliphate" as they prepared Friday for a final assault against ISIS militants hunkered down for a desperate last stand. "Many foreigners from various nationalities were among them," Bali told AFP without specifying which ones. Up to several thousand people are thought to remain in a makeshift camp on the edge of Baghouz, that was larger than Britain four years ago. Speaking to American troops in Alaska on Thursday, Trump said: "We just took over, you know, you kept hearing it was 90 percent, 92 percent, the caliphate in Syria. Now its 100 percent we just took over, 100 percent caliphate." Some 40,000 people have crossed out of the militants diminishing territory in the last three months as the US-backed SDF sought to drive the militants from remaining pockets. The number of evacuees pouring out of Baghouz has surpassed initial estimates of how many were inside. An SDF commander told Reuters on Thursday that many of the people leaving Baghouz had been sheltering underground in caves and tunnels. The exodus from ISIS last redoubt, where people have been besieged and starving for weeks, continued to generate epic scenes of mass displacement. Almost every day, women veiled from head to toe, their arms loaded with scruffy children and bags containing their scant belongings, can be seen trudging through the countryside towards an SDF assembly point. There are also some men among the evacuees, who get trucked to a screening center and dispatched to camps or prisons. The Kurdish-run camp of Al-Hol, which has received most new arrivals in recent days is completely overwhelmed. Its population has soared past 50,000 and aid organizations fear dysentery and other diseases could break out. The United Nations issued a statement on Thursday calling for urgent funding to help scale up the emergency response. "More tents, food, non-food items, water and sanitation, health and protection services, as well as other emergency supplies are urgently needed," it said. A spokesman for the US-led international coalition which supports the SDF said the Kurdish-led Syrian group had adopted a "slow and deliberate" approach to Baghouz. "They are dealing with multiple dilemmas and trying to stabilize the area," Colonel Sean Ryan said. The coalition said late on Thursday it had killed veteran French militant Fabien Clain, who voiced a recording claiming responsibility for the November 2015 attacks on Paris, in a strike in Baghouz. It did not say when he had been killed. The United States has about 2,000 troops in Syria mainly to support the SDF in fighting against ISIS. Trump announced in December he would withdraw all of them because ISIS had already been defeated, a decision that shocked allies and top aides and prompted Defense Secretary Jim Mattis to quit. Earlier this month, the White House partially reversed itself and said around 400 US troops would stay.