WATCH: North Korean children tell CNN reporter they want to shoot him for being American

CNN reporter Will Ripley got a rare opportunity to travel to North Korea this week ahead of leader Kim Jong-un's meeting with President Donald Trump -- and he found a group of children who said they wanted to kill him.

During a segment about life in North Korea, the children told Ripley that "we want to fight the sworn enemy, the Americans."

Ripley responded by trying to put a human face on their enemy.

"What if I told you I'm an American, do you want to shoot me too?" he asked.

"Yes," replied one boy without hesitating. "Yes."

Another North Korean woman who spoke with Ripley said she had "only hatred" for Americans, while another woman told him, "I curse the Americans, I want to destroy their land!"

Ripley noted that, once he turned the cameras off, many of the people he was interviewing became much more friendly toward him, suggesting that they were putting on a show so that they don't run afoul of Kim's government censors for being too nice to Americans.

Watch the video below.

(Correction: A previous version of this story incorrectly described the children as heavily armed.)