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Many times a week, Mohamed ‘Momo’ Ag Malha journeys at least 7 miles (11km) around the vast Mbera refugee camp in southeastern Mauritania that has been his residence since 2012. The routine keeps the 84-year-old camp leader mentally and physically fit, and permits him to monitor the welfare of other residents.

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

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

The former math and science teacher says he feels deeply sympathetic for the young inhabitants of Mbera, which is located 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 nation [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 longs to revisit one day.”

Initially conceived as a few thousand huts, Mbera now accommodates around 120,000 refugees, according to the UN refugee agency. In furthermore, it is estimated that at least 154,000 refugees live in nearby villages across the Hodh Ech Chargui province. More than half are under 18.

Government officials say the area is the third largest human community in Mauritania after Nouakchott and Nouadhibou, the governmental and business capitals.

Each month, thousands more refugees pour in across the border, escaping a militant uprising that hijacked the Tuareg rebellion and has since left large parts of the country lawless. Aid workers – notably at the UN World Food Programme (WFP) and Unicef office in the town of Bassikounou, which services the camp and nearby settlements – cannot stop being concerned. They have faced dwindling resources as foreign donors – most notably the now ceased USAID – have drastically cut 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 discontinue essential nutrition programmes for malnourished children and mothers due to financial constraints,” says Aliou Diongue, country director for WFP.

The camp has many of the trappings of a long-term settlement, including its own bank, eight schools, a market with more than 500 outlets, and volleyball and football programmes. Members of a parent-teacher association use megaphones to get more children signed up in school. New entrants are processed by aid workers and state agents using biometric systems.

Nearby, police patrols protect the camp from the threat of fighters just a few miles from the border.

Some residents have assumed new roles with zeal: volunteers in the SOS Desert organisation grow crops for sale and manage an anti-fire brigade putting out bushfires; members of a women’s resource network support those injured 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 recycle 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 sit by a big tray to eat the same meal every school day – rice that is almost plain, save for a few beans.

“We’re still supplying school meals, staple provisions, and cash assistance in the Mbera camp, but it’s not enough,” says Diongue. “We’re prioritizing the most vulnerable while working continuously to secure new funding through the broadening of our funding sources.”

The meals are funded by recent gifts including several thousand tonnes of rice donated by the South Korean government – the only items in a majority of the warehouses. A few donors are also helping launch entrepreneurship programmes to help refugees grow crops and keep animals so they can generate funds and boost their quality of life.

Though Malha supervises 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 enough, sometimes it is not. And when it is not, you struggle.

“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.”