diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index db2bd4ff885cf9d3e3f34cf34f0ccff7c3e27e8e..f7af39c510c2c3bc5e1b3e338eb2f83370c8a25a 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -9,6 +9,7 @@ to [Semantic Versioning](https://semver.org/spec/v2.0.0.html).
 ### New
 ### Changed
 - Unify dependency scripts (dl and compile): Unify `-d` and `-p` flags ([!174](https://storage.bsc.es/gitlab/hpc/gekkofs/-/merge_requests/174)).
+- Increased merge assert for files with size 0, specific for DLIO with GekkoFS in Debug ([!208])(https://storage.bsc.es/gitlab/hpc/gekkofs/-/merge_requests/208)).
 ### Removed
 ### Fixed
 
diff --git a/src/daemon/backend/metadata/merge.cpp b/src/daemon/backend/metadata/merge.cpp
index 84fd5c66f79a5c6d8e5681d5c10645989367a07b..a7743f3019e022940ad15cece642f77325b758bd 100644
--- a/src/daemon/backend/metadata/merge.cpp
+++ b/src/daemon/backend/metadata/merge.cpp
@@ -216,7 +216,7 @@ MetadataMergeOperator::FullMergeV2(const MergeOperationInput& merge_in,
             }
         } else if(operand_id == OperandID::decrease_size) {
             auto op = DecreaseSizeOperand(parameters);
-            assert(op.size() < fsize); // we assume no concurrency here
+            assert(op.size() <= fsize); // we assume no concurrency here
             fsize = op.size();
         } else if(operand_id == OperandID::create) {
             continue;