Managua, Jun 14 (EFE).– Thousands of people took to the streets of Juigalpa, a city in central Nicaragua, for a march against the inter-oceanic canal being built by China’s HKND Group.

People from across Nicaragua, the majority of them peasants, traveled to Juigalpa for Saturday’s march.

The protesters demanded that President Daniel Ortega’s administration cancel the project because it will push farmers off their land and harm the environment.

The peasants are unhappy about a provision of the canal law that effectively compels residents along the route to sell their land to Hong Kong-based lead contractor HKND Group at whatever price the company offers.

The marchers carried signs that said “Ortega Sellout” and “Out with the Chinese,” and they chanted slogans against the project.

Some 15,000 people took part in the march, surpassing the 10,000 that organizers expected, Sandinista Renewal Movement, or MRS, alternate Congresswoman Silvia Gutierrez told Efe

There were some scuffles between protesters and government supporters, but only one person was reported injured and police did not intervene to stop minor acts of vandalism.

The $50 billion project officially got under way last December despite widespread opposition spurred by the government’s failure to even conduct studies of the canal’s potential impact on the environment and affected communities.

The waterway is to wind 278 kilometers (173 miles) from the Pacific coastal town of Brito to the mouth of the Punta Gorda River on Nicaragua’s Atlantic shore.

A significant portion of the canal route – 105 kilometers – runs through Lake Nicaragua.

The project is to include two deepwater ports, an airport, an artificial lake, two sets of locks, a tourist complex, a free-trade zone, roads, and cement and steel factories, HKND Group says.

HKND expects to complete the project in 2019. EFE