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Many days a week, Mohamed ‘Momo’ Ag Malha journeys at least 7 miles (11km) around the sprawling Mbera refugee camp in south-eastern Mauritania that has been his dwelling since 2012. The activity keeps the 84-year-old camp elder vigorous, and permits him to check on the wellbeing of other occupants.

His initial stay in Mauritania happened in 1991, when he escaped Mali as Tuareg insurgents 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 social 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 especially sad for the younger inhabitants of Mbera, which is positioned approximately 30 miles from the Malian border.

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

Initially conceived 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 region. More than half are under 18.

Government representatives 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, escaping a militant uprising that took over the Tuareg rebellion and has since left extensive areas of the country uncontrollable. Aid workers – especially at the UN World Food Programme (WFP) and Unicef office in the town of Bassikounou, which supports the camp and adjacent settlements – cannot stop worrying. They have faced declining resources as foreign donors – most notably the now defunct USAID – have sharply reduced funding this year.

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

The camp has many of the trappings of a established 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 loudspeakers to get more children registered in school. New entrants are processed by aid workers and state agents using digital identification.

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

Some residents have taken on new duties with enthusiasm: volunteers in the SOS Desert organisation grow crops for sale and run an anti-fire brigade putting out bushfires; members of a women’s resource network support those maimed by jihadist attacks and mothers-to-be while also raising awareness about educating girls.

But the camp’s needs are evident.

“We have the determination, we have the women, but not enough resources or materials,” 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 provided 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 almost plain, save for a few pulses.

“We’re still providing school meals, basic food distributions, and financial support in the Mbera camp, but it’s not enough,” says Diongue. “We’re prioritizing the most needy while working relentlessly to obtain new funding through the diversification of our funding sources.”

The meals are funded by recent contributions including several thousand tonnes of rice supplied by the South Korean government – the only products in a bulk of the warehouses. A few donors are also helping initiate self-sufficiency programmes to help refugees grow crops and rear animals so they can earn an income and improve their standard of living.

Though Malha manages everything conscientiously, helping the aid workers’ assist the most needy households, his heart longs to return to Mali.

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

“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.”