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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 home since 2012. The exercise keeps the 84-year-old camp elder mentally and physically fit, and enables him to assess the wellbeing of other residents.

His first stay in Mauritania happened in 1991, when he left Mali as Tuareg rebels clashed with the army in his native Timbuktu area.

After four years as a refugee, he went back and worked for a year as a community worker before becoming a teacher. Then in 2012, the Tuareg unrest once again compelled him across the border.

The former math and science teacher says he feels especially sad for the young residents of Mbera, which is situated 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 homeland [and] that is painful 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.”

First established as a few thousand shelters, Mbera now accommodates around 120,000 refugees, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. In furthermore, it is estimated 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 encampment in Mauritania after Nouakchott and Nouadhibou, the governmental and business hubs.

Each month, thousands more refugees arrive across the border, fleeing a extremist rebellion that hijacked the Tuareg rebellion and has since left swathes 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 nearby settlements – cannot stop being concerned. 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] help almost 90,000 people with both food or cash every month to about 53,000 … and had to discontinue vital 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 stores, and volleyball and football initiatives. Members of a parent-teacher association use megaphones to get more children registered in school. New arrivals are registered by aid workers and state agents using biometric systems.

Nearby, police patrols secure the camp from the threat of militants just a few miles from the border.

Some residents have adopted new duties with enthusiasm: volunteers in the SOS Desert organisation grow crops for sale and operate an anti-fire brigade putting out bushfires; members of a women’s resource network care for those injured by jihadist attacks and mothers-to-be while also promoting awareness about teaching 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 repurpose what little we have, but it is not enough for the requirements 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 largely basic, save for a few pulses.

“We’re still providing school meals, staple provisions, and financial support in the Mbera camp, but it’s not enough,” says Diongue. “We’re focusing on the most at-risk while working tirelessly to secure new funding through the expansion of our funding sources.”

The meals are powered by recent donations 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 entrepreneurship programmes to help refugees grow crops and keep animals so they can generate funds and improve their livelihood.

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

“When you leave your country, you sacrifice everything – your work, your home, your family sometimes,” he says. “Here, you depend only on humanitarian aid. Sometimes that aid is enough, 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 self-respect.”