Authorities on the eastern Aegean island of Lesvos this week issued α dire warning that the border isle turning into a new “Lampedusa” as some 3,000 illegal migrants — all from Third World countries — have arrived just this year!

In a report from the Greek island, which lies across from the Asia Minor coast, the Athens daily Kathimerini states that coast guard officers interviewing undocumented migrants report that the latter claim they arrived because they “learned Greece has opened its borders!”

The Union of Coast Guard Personnel of Lesvos, in an announcement, points to a five-fold increase (totaling 3,000) in the number of illegal migrants arrested in the first three months of 2015 with the corresponding period of 2014.

Over the March 27-March 29 period alone, 620 foreign nationals reached Lesvos’ shores.

On Tuesday, another 38 migrants were located and rescued in the Plomari region, including four women and three children amongst them.

One unnamed source also admitted that the Greek coast guard had previously used the “push back” method to block smugglers from approaching Greek waters, a policy that, however, was reportedly stopped when the new leftist government took office on Jan. 25.

“Some of the volunteers that in the past criticised this coast guard practise are now in key positions,” Kathimerini quotes the source as saying.

Coast guard officials on the island added, without going on record, however, that their information is that a whopping 2.5 million refugees and would-be migrants are in Turkey and waiting to illegally enter Greece and the EU.

“What we ask is for the operational funds allocated to the coast guard be used for guarding the borders and not to manage irregular migrants,” was the statement attributed to the high-ranking source.