[6] Like other Andamanese peoples, the Bo were decimated during colonial and post-colonial times, by diseases, alcohol, opium and loss of territory.

[7] Census takers were told that an epidemic had come from the neighboring Kari and Kora tribes, and the Bo had resorted to killing all of their own who showed symptoms.

The last speaker of the Bo language, a woman named Boa Senior, died at age 85 in late January, 2010.

[10] Boa Sr.'s mother, who died approximately forty years before her daughter, was the only living speaker of Bo for a long time.

Other members of the Great Andamanese speech community had difficulty understanding the songs and narratives which she knew in Bo.

[12] Boa Sr.'s death left just 52[1] surviving Great Andamanese people in the world, none of whom remember any Bo.

[1] Stephen Corry, director of the British-based NGO Survival International, issued a statement saying, "With the death of Boa Sr. and the extinction of the Bo language, a unique part of human society is now just a memory.