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Many mornings a week, Mohamed ‘Momo’ Ag Malha treks at least 7 miles (11km) around the enormous Mbera refugee camp in south-eastern Mauritania that has been his dwelling since 2012. The activity keeps the 84-year-old camp coordinator healthy in mind and body, and permits him to check on the wellbeing of other residents.

His first stay in Mauritania came in 1991, when he fled Mali as Tuareg separatists battled with the army in his home Timbuktu region.

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 conflict once again compelled him across the border.

The former math and science teacher says he feels especially sad for the young people of Mbera, which is positioned 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 homeland [and] that is painful because a refugee always has dual loyalties: 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 huts, Mbera now hosts around 120,000 refugees, according to the UN refugee agency. In furthermore, it is calculated that at least 154,000 refugees live 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 administrative and commercial capitals.

Each month, thousands more refugees come across the border, fleeing a militant uprising that hijacked 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 supports the camp and adjacent settlements – cannot stop being concerned. They have faced declining 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 food or cash every month to about 53,000 … and had to stop 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 features of a permanent settlement, including its own financial institution, 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 registered in school. New entrants are processed by aid workers and state agents using fingerprint technology.

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

Some residents have adopted new duties with zeal: volunteers in the SOS Desert organisation cultivate food for sale and manage an firefighting unit putting out bushfires; members of a women’s resource network look after those maimed by jihadist attacks and expectant mothers while also spreading awareness about educating girls.

But the camp’s demands 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 recycle what little we have, but it is not enough for the demands 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 gather 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 prioritizing the most vulnerable while working tirelessly to acquire new funding through the expansion of our support network.”

The meals are funded by recent gifts including several thousand tonnes of rice provided by the South Korean government – the only products in a majority of the warehouses. A few donors are also helping initiate business programmes to help refugees cultivate and keep animals so they can earn an income and enhance their livelihood.

Though Malha manages everything conscientiously, helping the aid workers’ support the most vulnerable 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 are entirely reliant on humanitarian aid. Sometimes that aid is enough, sometimes it is not. And when it is not, you suffer.

“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 self-respect.”