UNHCR Family Relief Tent (16 m², Fire-Retardant) — BNC, Karachi since 1952
Babson & Noller Corporation has supplied UNHCR family relief tents direct from Karachi for nearly three decades. Cotton canvas built to the UNHCR Family Relief Tent (FRT) specification, finished and stockpile-ready, with 24/72-hour airlift from Jinnah International or Karachi Port. This page is for procurement officers evaluating Pakistani manufacturers for the UNHCR supplier roster or a current emergency procurement.
Direct supply · Afghan refugee responses · Kashmir 2005 · Pakistan floods 2010 / 2022
Post-USAID, every dollar lands closer to the crisis. Pakistani manufacturers don't carry a European logistics markup.
US contributions to UNHCR are down from $2B (2024) to $812M (2025); UNHCR has cut 5,000 positions and 185 field offices, WFP cut 6,000. The 2026 UN appeal is hyper-prioritised at $23B for 87M people — meaning category teams are forced to consolidate to lowest-landed-cost suppliers. OCHA flags that limited tent and tarpaulin stocks are pushing Shelter partners to substitute NFIs for actual shelter at ~20,000 households per week in Gaza alone. BNC has manufactured to UNHCR FRT specifications for 30 years out of Karachi — closest ISO 9001 tent factory to Afghanistan, eastern DRC's Indian Ocean corridor, Gaza via Aqaba, and Sudan via Port Sudan.
Source: UNHCR Jan 2026 press release · The New Humanitarian · OCHA Gaza Sit Rep #355
Three campaigns where BNC tents went into the field through UNHCR channels.
Afghan refugee responses · 1990s onwards
BNC has been a steady supplier through UNHCR Afghanistan and Pakistan country offices for nearly thirty years of cross-border movement. Volume profiles have varied with the geography of each wave; the procurement need has not.
Kashmir earthquake · October 2005
Direct supply of cotton canvas family relief tents during the immediate sixty-day relief window. Production line ran around the clock; tents airlifted Karachi to Islamabad and trucked into Muzaffarabad.
Pakistan floods · 2010 and 2022
Multi-agency consolidation through UNHCR plus OXFAM, ICRC and the WFP cluster in 2010. The 2022 super-flood ran through NDMA, IOM and partner INGOs, combining tent and tarpaulin supply across Sindh and southern Punjab. Some of the 2022 tarpaulins are still in field service.
FRT spec, in stock, ready for assay
Direct manufacturer, single legal entity from cutting floor to country-of-origin certificate. No trader mark-up, no second factory we subcontract to in China. The product on the container is the product the supplier-qualification team can come and inspect at the same address.
Cotton canvas, 350 g/m² roof and walls, finished to UNHCR FRT family-tent specification Double-fly construction, mosquito mesh on inner door and windows, central pole reinforcement Storage volume in stockpile-ready canvas bags with sewn-in inventory tag pocket Per-batch fire retardancy (EN 13823+A1), waterproofing and tear-strength assay reports on request
"When there is an emergency, the agencies that buy tents go to whoever has stock and can deliver. Whether you are on a registry or not is secondary. We have supplied UNHCR and many other UN bodies directly across thirty years, because we keep canvas in stock and ship the day the order lands." Syed Rayhan Ahmad · Managing Director · BNC, Karachi
Capability statement, ready to share with the qualification team.
If your team is preparing the next tender for relief-tent stockpile renewal, or you have an active emergency that needs canvas in the air this week, we can quote against the UNHCR FRT spec on the same business day in Karachi (overnight for Geneva, same-day for Copenhagen and Budapest). Capability statement PDF available below; ISO 9001 certificate, recent bank reference and a sample assay report shared on supplier-qualification request.
Download the BNC UNHCR Readiness Kit
Spec compliance, production capacity, QA flow, shipping lanes — sized for your category team to read in 10 minutes. Email-gated. Reply within one Karachi business day.
I'm with UNHCR and would like to discuss a current or upcoming family-tent procurement.
Tell us volume, destination, INCOTERMS, and which spec you are working to. We come back the same business day in Karachi (overnight for Geneva, same-day for Copenhagen and Dubai) with a quote and the relevant certifications attached.