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Many days a week, Mohamed ‘Momo’ Ag Malha walks at least 7 miles (11km) around the enormous Mbera refugee camp in southeastern Mauritania that has been his residence since 2012. The activity keeps the 84-year-old camp leader mentally and physically fit, and enables him to assess the condition of other residents.

His first stay in Mauritania came in 1991, when he escaped Mali as Tuareg separatists fought 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 transitioning to a teacher. Then in 2012, the Tuareg unrest once again pushed him across the border.

The former mathematics and physics teacher says he feels particularly sorry for the young inhabitants of Mbera, which is situated approximately 30 miles from the Malian border.

“Some of the children who were born here in Mbera have never even seen Mali,” he says. “They do not know their homeland [and] that is painful 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.”

First established as a few thousand shelters, Mbera now accommodates around 120,000 refugees, according to UNHCR. In furthermore, 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 officials say the area is the third-biggest human community in Mauritania after Nouakchott and Nouadhibou, the administrative and commercial hubs.

Each month, thousands more refugees pour in across the border, escaping a jihadist insurgency that co-opted the Tuareg rebellion and has since left swathes of the country lawless. Aid workers – notably at the UN World Food Programme (WFP) and Unicef office in the town of Bassikounou, which assists the camp and adjacent settlements – cannot stop being concerned. They have faced declining resources as foreign donors – most notably the now defunct USAID – have drastically cut funding this year.

“We’ve gone from [being able to] support almost 90,000 people with both provisions or financial assistance every month to about 53,000 … and had to stop essential 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 financial institution, eight schools, a market with more than 500 shops, and volleyball and football initiatives. Members of a parent-teacher association use loudspeakers to get more children enrolled in school. New entrants are documented by aid workers and state agents using biometric systems.

Nearby, police patrols secure the camp from the danger of fighters just a few miles from the border.

Some residents have taken on new responsibilities with gusto: 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 support those maimed by jihadist attacks and expectant mothers while also promoting awareness about teaching girls.

But the camp’s needs are evident.

“We have the determination, we have the women, but not enough financial support or equipment,” a leading member of the network says. “Sometimes we repurpose what little we have, but it is not enough for the needs of the camp.”

In the schools, the children are served 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 offering school meals, staple provisions, and cash assistance in the Mbera camp, but it’s not enough,” says Diongue. “We’re concentrating on the most at-risk while working tirelessly to secure new funding through the expansion of our funding sources.”

The meals are supported by recent donations including several thousand tonnes of rice donated by the South Korean government – the only products in a bulk of the warehouses. A few donors are also helping start self-sufficiency programmes to help refugees cultivate and raise animals so they can make money and improve their livelihood.

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

“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.”