Nine people, including four policemen, were also wounded in the clashes Friday in the town of Amre which will be affected by the Meroe dam, the largest hydropower project in Africa, a police statement said.

Up to 1,000 people attacked police forces as the authorities prepared to conduct a census in the area, whose population will be displaced by the dam's reservoir, projected to be some 200 kilometres (120 miles) long.

"A limited group of the Amre inhabitants attacked the local and census committees, torched five government cars and offices and a classroom where the census committee was to operate."

Police responded to stone-throwing by protestors "and the ensuing clash resulted in the killing of three civilians before the situation was contained," the statement said, without saying how they had died.

A local committee of residents has accused the government of failing to offer adequate compensation and resettlement options for the population.

Abdel Mutaleb Hadalla, from a local committee protesting the government plans, told reporters in Khartoum that the authorities "decided to relocate the inhabitants by force without paying them fair compensation."

An estimated 50,000 people have already been displaced by the construction of the 67-metre (220-feet) dam, which will submerge the fourth cataract of the Nile, some 350 kilometres (220 miles) north of the capital.

Many of them have been relocated from the fertile banks of the Nile to desert areas where water resources are scarce.

On the project's official website, the dam is described as a national priority "because the country is suffering from an acute shortage of electricity power, which impedes the economical and social development."

But in addition to the human impact, independent studies have argued that the project -- due to be completed by the end of 2008 -- would have a negative impact on the environment.

Eawag, the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology, published a report last month charging that the environmental impact of the Meroe dam "was not assessed properly".

It warned that the accumulation of millions of tons of sediment may threaten the reservoir's survival and added that no adequate measures had been taken to ensure water quality in the reservoir and prevent greenhouse gas emissions.

Eawag also warned that the damage caused to the river's fragile banks and its aquatic life had been underestimated.

The project, the cost of which is estimated at 1.5 billion dollars, was designed by Germany's Lahmeyer International and is being developed by Chinese Consortium CCMD, France's Alstom and Switzerland's ABB.

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