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A number of times a week, Mohamed ‘Momo’ Ag Malha treks at least 7 miles (11km) around the enormous Mbera refugee camp in southeastern Mauritania that has been his dwelling since 2012. The routine keeps the 84-year-old camp elder mentally and physically fit, and enables him to assess the welfare of other inhabitants.

His first stay in Mauritania occurred in 1991, when he fled Mali as Tuareg separatists battled with the army in his native Timbuktu province.

After four years as a refugee, he came back and worked for a year as a community worker before becoming a teacher. Then in 2012, the Tuareg fighting once again compelled him across the border.

The former math and science teacher says he feels particularly sorry for the younger people of Mbera, which is situated approximately 30 miles from the Malian border.

“Some of the kids who were born here in Mbera have never even seen Mali,” he says. “They do not know their nation [and] that is difficult because a refugee always has two hearts: one here, where he lives, and another over there, in his homeland, which he longs to revisit one day.”

Initially conceived as a few thousand shelters, Mbera now accommodates around 120,000 refugees, according to the UN refugee agency. In furthermore, it is approximated that at least 154,000 refugees live in nearby villages across the Hodh Ech Chargui area. More than half are under 18.

Government representatives say the area is the number three human encampment in Mauritania after Nouakchott and Nouadhibou, the administrative and commercial hubs.

Each month, thousands more refugees come across the border, fleeing a militant uprising that co-opted the Tuareg rebellion and has since left large parts of the country lawless. Aid workers – notably at the UN World Food Programme (WFP) and Unicef office in the town of Bassikounou, which services the camp and neighbouring settlements – cannot stop feeling anxious. They have faced declining resources as foreign donors – most notably the now ceased USAID – have drastically cut funding this year.

“We’ve gone from [being able to] help almost 90,000 people with both nutritional aid or money every month to about 53,000 … and had to stop crucial nutrition programmes for malnourished children and mothers due to funding cuts,” says Aliou Diongue, country director for WFP.

The camp has many of the features of a long-term settlement, including its own bank, eight schools, a market with more than 500 outlets, and volleyball and football activities. Members of a parent-teacher association use amplifiers to get more children enrolled in school. New entrants are registered by aid workers and state agents using biometric systems.

Nearby, gendarmerie patrols guard the camp from the risk of armed groups just a few miles from the border.

Some residents have adopted new roles with enthusiasm: volunteers in the SOS Desert organisation farm produce for sale and run an anti-fire brigade putting out bushfires; members of a women’s resource network care for those injured by jihadist attacks and mothers-to-be while also spreading awareness about educating girls.

But the camp’s needs are obvious.

“We have the determination, we have the women, but not enough resources or equipment,” a leading member of the network says. “Sometimes we reuse what little we have, but it is not enough for the needs of the camp.”

In the schools, the children are given one meal daily by WFP. At one school with 100 children per class, six or seven of them gather by a big tray to eat the same meal every school day – rice that is mostly unseasoned, save for a few beans.

“We’re still supplying school meals, essential food aid, and monetary aid in the Mbera camp, but it’s not enough,” says Diongue. “We’re prioritizing the most needy while working continuously to secure new funding through the expansion of our support network.”

The meals are powered by recent donations including several thousand tonnes of rice provided by the South Korean government – the only goods in a majority of the warehouses. A few donors are also helping initiate business programmes to help refugees grow crops and keep animals so they can make money and improve their livelihood.

Though Malha supervises everything conscientiously, helping the aid workers’ cater to the most disadvantaged households, his heart aches to return to Mali.

“When you leave your country, you lose everything – your work, your home, your family sometimes,” he says. “Here, you depend only on humanitarian aid. Sometimes that aid is adequate, sometimes it is not. And when it is not, you endure hardship.

“We thank the Mauritanian authorities and the humanitarian organisations for what they have done for us but it is not the same as being in your own country, working with your own hands and living with pride.”