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A number of mornings a week, Mohamed ‘Momo’ Ag Malha treks at least 7 miles (11km) around the sprawling Mbera refugee camp in south-eastern Mauritania that has been his residence since 2012. The routine keeps the 84-year-old camp coordinator healthy in mind and body, and allows him to monitor the welfare of other occupants.

His first stay in Mauritania came in 1991, when he escaped Mali as Tuareg rebels fought with the army in his native Timbuktu province.

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 math and science teacher says he feels deeply sympathetic for the young inhabitants of Mbera, which is situated approximately 30 miles from the Malian border.

“Some of the young ones who were born here in Mbera have not laid eyes on Mali,” he says. “They do not know their country [and] that is difficult because a refugee always has split affections: one here, where he lives, and another over there, in his homeland, which he hopes to go back to one day.”

First established as a few thousand shelters, Mbera now hosts around 120,000 refugees, according to the UN refugee agency. In addition, it is approximated that at least 154,000 refugees dwell in nearby villages across the Hodh Ech Chargui province. More than half are under 18.

Government representatives say the area is the third-biggest human encampment in Mauritania after Nouakchott and Nouadhibou, the administrative and commercial capitals.

Each month, thousands more refugees come across the border, running from a extremist rebellion that took over 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 assists the camp and nearby settlements – cannot stop worrying. They have faced shrinking resources as foreign donors – most notably the now ceased USAID – have severely slashed funding this year.

“We’ve gone from [being able to] support almost 90,000 people with both nutritional aid or money every month to about 53,000 … and had to halt crucial nutrition programmes for undernourished children and mothers due to budget reductions,” 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 initiatives. Members of a parent-teacher association use megaphones to get more children enrolled in school. New comers are documented by aid workers and state agents using biometric systems.

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

Some residents have taken on new duties with zeal: 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 look after those maimed by jihadist attacks and mothers-to-be while also raising awareness about educating girls.

But the camp’s requirements are clear.

“We have the will, we have the women, but not enough financial support or materials,” a leading member of the network says. “Sometimes we repurpose what little we have, but it is not enough for the requirements 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 sit by a big tray to eat the same meal every school day – rice that is mostly unseasoned, 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 concentrating on the most needy while working tirelessly to obtain new funding through the broadening of our funding sources.”

The meals are powered by recent gifts including several thousand tonnes of rice donated by the South Korean government – the only products in a majority of the warehouses. A few donors are also helping launch self-sufficiency programmes to help refugees grow crops and keep animals so they can make money and boost their livelihood.

Though Malha oversees everything dutifully, helping the aid workers’ support the most disadvantaged households, his heart yearns 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 sufficient, sometimes it is not. And when it is not, you suffer.

“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.”