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A number of mornings a week, Mohamed ‘Momo’ Ag Malha journeys at least 7 miles (11km) around the enormous Mbera refugee camp in south-eastern Mauritania that has been his residence since 2012. The exercise keeps the 84-year-old camp elder mentally and physically fit, and allows him to monitor the condition of other occupants.

His initial stay in Mauritania occurred in 1991, when he escaped Mali as Tuareg rebels clashed with the army in his native Timbuktu area.

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 fighting once again forced him across the border.

The former mathematics and physics teacher says he feels deeply sympathetic for the younger inhabitants of Mbera, which is located 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 nation [and] that is difficult because a refugee always has two hearts: 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 dwellings, Mbera now accommodates around 120,000 refugees, according to UNHCR. In furthermore, it is estimated that at least 154,000 refugees reside in nearby villages across the Hodh Ech Chargui province. More than half are under 18.

Government officials say the area is the number three human settlement in Mauritania after Nouakchott and Nouadhibou, the administrative and commercial hubs.

Each month, thousands more refugees come across the border, escaping a jihadist insurgency that hijacked the Tuareg rebellion and has since left swathes of the country uncontrollable. 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 worrying. 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] help almost 90,000 people with both food or cash every month to about 53,000 … and had to halt crucial nutrition programmes for undernourished children and mothers due to funding cuts,” says Aliou Diongue, country director for WFP.

The camp has many of the trappings of a permanent settlement, including its own financial institution, eight schools, a market with more than 500 outlets, and volleyball and football programmes. Members of a parent-teacher association use loudspeakers to get more children signed up in school. New entrants are documented by aid workers and state agents using digital identification.

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

Some residents have taken on new responsibilities 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 care for those injured by jihadist attacks and pregnant women while also raising awareness about educating girls.

But the camp’s requirements are evident.

“We have the desire, we have the women, but not enough resources or materials,” a leading member of the network says. “Sometimes we repurpose 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 gather by a big tray to eat the same meal every school day – rice that is mostly unseasoned, save for a few beans.

“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 focusing on the most needy while working tirelessly to acquire new funding through the diversification of our donor base.”

The meals are supported by recent contributions 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 start business programmes to help refugees grow crops and keep animals so they can generate funds and boost their quality of life.

Though Malha manages everything responsibly, 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 are entirely reliant 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 self-respect.”