Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir inaugurated a massive hydroelectric project on Tuesday that has displaced tens of thousands of people and is the largest to be built on the Nile in 40 years.

The more than two-billion-dollar (1.590-billion-euro) Chinese-engineered Merowe Dam will eventually double Sudan's power capacity to about 1,250 megawatts. Two of its 10 turbines, which were built by French group Alstom, began operations on Tuesday and Beshir has promised cuts in utility bills of 25-30 percent.

It is the biggest such project since the construction of the Aswan High Dam in Egypt in the 1950s and was developed by China's CCMD consortium under the supervision of German group Lahmeyer.

In 2006, violent protests by villagers opposed to the dam broke out. Three people were killed and dozens injured. More than 40,000 people were forced to leave their homes to make way for the dam and the vast reservoir that will be formed behind it, 400 kilometres (250 miles) north of the capital Khartoum.

The government built new villages for the displaced people in the desert, but many of those expelled from their homes refused to move into them.

"There are people who lost everything," said Ali Askuri, a spokesman for the displaced people. "They live like homeless near the reservoir, and do not want to be resettled in the desert."

The dam's inauguration comes on the eve of an announcement by the International Criminal Court on whether it will issue a warrant for Beshir's arrest over alleged war crimes in Darfur.

And thousand of people gathered for the ceremony in an apparent show of support for the president.

Many of them held up posters of Beshir scribbled with the message: "We are with you."

Pictures of ICC prosecutor general Luis Moreno-Ocampo, who recommended last July that the court issue the arrest warrant, were strewn on the ground to be trampled on by the crowd.

"The Western world is targeting Sudan in order to stop... its development projects but we don't absolutely care," Beshir said. "We will respond to all these decisions with new development projects."

In his remarks, Beshir also said that "any decision by the International Criminal Court has no value for us. It will not be worth the ink it is written in."

Despite the six-year-old war in Darfur, China has maintained close relations with Beshir's regime, drawing criticism from international human rights groups.