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A number of days a week, Mohamed ‘Momo’ Ag Malha journeys at least 7 miles (11km) around the enormous Mbera refugee camp in south-eastern Mauritania that has been his dwelling since 2012. The routine keeps the 84-year-old camp coordinator mentally and physically fit, and enables him to check on the wellbeing of other inhabitants.

His first stay in Mauritania came in 1991, when he left Mali as Tuareg separatists fought with the army in his native Timbuktu area.

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

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

“Some of the kids who were born here in Mbera have not once visited 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 dreams of returning to one day.”

Originally planned as a few thousand shelters, Mbera now accommodates around 120,000 refugees, according to UNHCR. In also, it is approximated that at least 154,000 refugees reside in nearby villages across the Hodh Ech Chargui region. More than half are under 18.

Government authorities say the area is the third largest human community in Mauritania after Nouakchott and Nouadhibou, the governmental and business capitals.

Each month, thousands more refugees arrive across the border, escaping a militant uprising that hijacked the Tuareg rebellion and has since left swathes of the country lawless. Aid workers – especially at the UN World Food Programme (WFP) and Unicef office in the town of Bassikounou, which supports the camp and neighbouring settlements – cannot stop being concerned. They have faced dwindling resources as foreign donors – most notably the now discontinued USAID – have drastically cut funding this year.

“We’ve gone from [being able to] support almost 90,000 people with both provisions or financial assistance every month to about 53,000 … and had to halt essential nutrition programmes for hungry children and mothers due to budget reductions,” says Aliou Diongue, country director for WFP.

The camp has many of the characteristics of a permanent 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 registered in school. New arrivals are documented by aid workers and state agents using fingerprint technology.

Nearby, security patrols guard the camp from the danger of militants just a few miles from the border.

Some residents have taken on new roles with zeal: volunteers in the SOS Desert organisation farm produce for sale and run an blaze control team putting out bushfires; members of a women’s resource network care for those injured by jihadist attacks and pregnant women while also raising awareness about schooling girls.

But the camp’s requirements are evident.

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

In the schools, the children are served 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 almost plain, save for a few pulses.

“We’re still providing school meals, essential food aid, and cash assistance in the Mbera camp, but it’s not enough,” says Diongue. “We’re prioritizing the most vulnerable while working tirelessly to acquire new funding through the broadening 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 goods in a most of the warehouses. A few donors are also helping start entrepreneurship programmes to help refugees farm and rear animals so they can make money and boost their livelihood.

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

“When you leave your country, you forfeit everything – your work, your home, your family sometimes,” he says. “Here, you rely solely 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.”