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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 southeastern Mauritania that has been his residence since 2012. The exercise keeps the 84-year-old camp elder mentally and physically fit, and permits him to check on the welfare of other residents.

His initial stay in Mauritania came in 1991, when he left Mali as Tuareg insurgents battled with the army in his home 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 conflict once again compelled him across the border.

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

“Some of the young ones who were born here in Mbera have not once visited Mali,” he says. “They do not know their nation [and] that is heartbreaking because a refugee always has two hearts: one here, where he lives, and another over there, in his homeland, which he hopes to go back to one day.”

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

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

Each month, thousands more refugees pour in across the border, fleeing a jihadist insurgency that co-opted the Tuareg rebellion and has since left large parts of the country uncontrollable. Aid workers – especially at the UN World Food Programme (WFP) and Unicef office in the town of Bassikounou, which assists the camp and nearby settlements – cannot stop worrying. They have faced dwindling resources as foreign donors – most notably the now defunct USAID – have sharply reduced 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 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 trappings of a established settlement, including its own financial institution, eight schools, a market with more than 500 shops, and volleyball and football activities. Members of a parent-teacher association use megaphones to get more children registered in school. New arrivals are processed by aid workers and state agents using fingerprint technology.

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

Some residents have adopted new duties with gusto: volunteers in the SOS Desert organisation grow crops for sale and operate an firefighting unit putting out bushfires; members of a women’s resource network support those injured by jihadist attacks and mothers-to-be while also spreading awareness about educating girls.

But the camp’s requirements are clear.

“We have the will, we have the women, but not enough resources or equipment,” a leading member of the network says. “Sometimes we repurpose what little we have, but it is not enough for the demands 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 cluster 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, staple provisions, and financial support in the Mbera camp, but it’s not enough,” says Diongue. “We’re focusing on the most needy while working continuously to secure new funding through the expansion of our support network.”

The meals are funded by recent gifts including several thousand tonnes of rice donated by the South Korean government – the only items in a bulk of the warehouses. A few donors are also helping initiate business programmes to help refugees grow crops and raise 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 are entirely reliant on humanitarian aid. Sometimes that aid is adequate, sometimes it is not. And when it is not, you struggle.

“We appreciate 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.”