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A number of times a week, Mohamed ‘Momo’ Ag Malha journeys at least 7 miles (11km) around the vast Mbera refugee camp in south-eastern Mauritania that has been his residence since 2012. The exercise keeps the 84-year-old camp leader healthy in mind and body, and allows him to monitor the condition of other inhabitants.

His initial stay in Mauritania happened in 1991, when he escaped Mali as Tuareg rebels clashed with the army in his native Timbuktu region.

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

The former mathematics and physics teacher says he feels especially sad for the young people of Mbera, which is located approximately 30 miles from the Malian border.

“Some of the children who were born here in Mbera have not once visited Mali,” he says. “They do not know their country [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 dreams of returning to one day.”

First established as a few thousand shelters, Mbera now accommodates around 120,000 refugees, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. In also, it is calculated that at least 154,000 refugees dwell in nearby villages across the Hodh Ech Chargui province. More than half are under 18.

Government authorities say the area is the third-biggest human encampment in Mauritania after Nouakchott and Nouadhibou, the governmental and business hubs.

Each month, thousands more refugees arrive across the border, running from a militant uprising that co-opted the Tuareg rebellion and has since left large parts of the country lawless. Aid workers – particularly at the UN World Food Programme (WFP) and Unicef office in the town of Bassikounou, which services the camp and nearby settlements – cannot stop being concerned. They have faced declining resources as foreign donors – most notably the now defunct USAID – have severely slashed funding this year.

“We’ve gone from [being able to] help almost 90,000 people with both food or cash every month to about 53,000 … and had to stop essential nutrition programmes for hungry 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 financial institution, eight schools, a market with more than 500 outlets, and volleyball and football initiatives. Members of a parent-teacher association use megaphones to get more children enrolled in school. New entrants are documented by aid workers and state agents using fingerprint technology.

Nearby, police patrols guard the camp from the threat of fighters just a few miles from the border.

Some residents have taken on new responsibilities with enthusiasm: volunteers in the SOS Desert organisation farm produce for sale and run an firefighting unit putting out bushfires; members of a women’s resource network look after those wounded by jihadist attacks and expectant mothers while also spreading awareness about teaching girls.

But the camp’s requirements are clear.

“We have the will, we have the women, but not enough funding or supplies,” a leading member of the network says. “Sometimes we reuse what little we have, but it is not enough for the demands of the camp.”

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

“We’re still offering school meals, basic food distributions, and monetary aid in the Mbera camp, but it’s not enough,” says Diongue. “We’re concentrating on the most at-risk while working relentlessly to secure new funding through the expansion of our funding sources.”

The meals are supported by recent contributions including several thousand tonnes of rice donated by the South Korean government – the only products in a most of the warehouses. A few donors are also helping start self-sufficiency programmes to help refugees farm and raise animals so they can generate funds and boost their livelihood.

Though Malha manages everything dutifully, helping the aid workers’ cater to the most disadvantaged households, his heart longs to return to Mali.

“When you leave your country, you sacrifice everything – your work, your home, your family sometimes,” he says. “Here, you are entirely reliant on humanitarian aid. Sometimes that aid is sufficient, sometimes it is not. And when it is not, you suffer.

“We are grateful to 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.”