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Several times 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 residence since 2012. The routine keeps the 84-year-old camp coordinator mentally and physically fit, and permits him to assess the welfare of other inhabitants.

His initial stay in Mauritania came in 1991, when he escaped Mali as Tuareg insurgents fought with the army in his native Timbuktu province.

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

The former math and science teacher says he feels especially sad 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 not laid eyes on Mali,” he says. “They do not know their nation [and] that is heartbreaking 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 UNHCR. In also, it is estimated 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 settlement in Mauritania after Nouakchott and Nouadhibou, the administrative and commercial capitals.

Each month, thousands more refugees arrive across the border, fleeing a jihadist insurgency that co-opted the Tuareg rebellion and has since left swathes of the country lawless. Aid workers – particularly at the UN World Food Programme (WFP) and Unicef office in the town of Bassikounou, which services the camp and neighbouring settlements – cannot stop feeling anxious. They have faced declining resources as foreign donors – most notably the now discontinued USAID – have drastically cut 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 discontinue 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 stores, and volleyball and football initiatives. Members of a parent-teacher association use amplifiers to get more children registered in school. New entrants are registered by aid workers and state agents using fingerprint technology.

Nearby, gendarmerie patrols protect the camp from the risk of armed groups just a few miles from the border.

Some residents have assumed new duties 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 wounded by jihadist attacks and mothers-to-be while also raising awareness about teaching girls.

But the camp’s requirements are obvious.

“We have the desire, we have the women, but not enough resources or supplies,” 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 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 providing school meals, staple provisions, and cash assistance in the Mbera camp, but it’s not enough,” says Diongue. “We’re prioritizing the most needy while working tirelessly to secure new funding through the broadening of our support network.”

The meals are powered by recent contributions including several thousand tonnes of rice provided by the South Korean government – the only items in a bulk of the warehouses. A few donors are also helping start business programmes to help refugees grow crops and keep animals so they can earn an income and boost their livelihood.

Though Malha supervises everything conscientiously, helping the aid workers’ cater to 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 rely solely on humanitarian aid. Sometimes that aid is sufficient, 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.”