The American hospital ship USNS "Mercy" has left the port in the American city of Mobile and is in the Gulf of Mexico on Tuesday evening Danish time.
This is reported by TV 2, while ship navigation sites such as Vesselfinder and Marine Traffic also show it.
According to the navigation sites, the ship has left the port at 2:30 p.m. Danish time. It is not clear what the ship's final destination is.
The hospital ship has become better known in Danish areas after US President Donald Trump made a cryptic post on his social media, Truth Social, on Sunday night Danish time.
Here he wrote that an American hospital ship, which will take care of many sick people, is on its way to Greenland.
Trump's post was accompanied by an AI-generated image of a hospital ship with the name USNS "Mercy" and an American flag.
According to TV 2, this is the first time since last year that the ship has left port.
Until Tuesday, it has been at the shipyard in Mobile in the US state of Alabama for maintenance.
The ship arrived at the Alabama Shipyard in July 2025, where, according to the maritime media gCaptain, it will be maintained for one year.
The US's second Mercy-class hospital ship, called USNS "Comfort", is also undergoing maintenance at the Alabama Shipyard.
It arrived here at the beginning of the year and is scheduled to be under maintenance until the end of April.
This is stated in a contract on the US Department of Defense website.
Greenland's Prime Minister, Jens-Frederik Nielsen, made it clear on Sunday that Greenland does not want to receive an American hospital ship.
- It will be a no thanks from here. President Trump's idea of sending an American hospital ship here to Greenland has been noted. But we have a public health system where treatment is free for citizens, he wrote on Facebook.
Both the USNS "Mercy" and "Comfort" have been extensively used to provide humanitarian aid in various places in the world.
For example, the USNS "Mercy" was in Micronesia in 2024, while the USNS "Comfort" was docked in New York in 2021 to help treat patients with covid-19.
/ritzau/
